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CHRIST 


IN    MODERN    LIFE 


SERMONS  PREACHED  IN  ST.  JAMES'S  CHAPEL,   YORK 
STREET,   ST.  JAMES'S  SQUARE,  LONDON, 


BT  THE 


Rev.   STOPFORD  A.  BROOKE,  M.A., 

HONOSABT  CHAFLAIN-IN-OBDINABT  TO  THE  QUZEN. 


NEW  YORK: 
D.     APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

B49   &  551    BEOADWAY. 

1872. 


PREFACE. 


The  main  thought  which  underlies  this  volume  is 
outlined  in  the  first  two  sermons,  and  is  this :  that 
the  ideas  which  Christ  made  manifest  on  earth  are 
capable  of  endless  expansion,  to  suit  the  wants  of  men 
in  every  age ;  and  that  they  do  expand,  developiug  into 
new  forms  of  larger  import  and  wider  application  in  a 
direct  proportion  to  that  progress  of  mankind  of  which 
they  are  both  root  and  sap.  If  we  look  long  and 
earnestly  enough,  we  shall  find  in  them  (not  read  into 
them,  as  some  say)  the  explanation  and  solution  not 
only  of  our  religious,  but  even  of  our  political  and 
social  problems.  Kor  do  they  contradict  the  ideas 
which  direct  scientific  research,  nor  those  which  have 
been  generalised  from  the  results  of  that  research,  but 
are  in  essential  analogy  with  both  one  and  the  other. 

In  speaking  of  their  first  revelation  and  the  manner 
of  it,  of  the  Person  and  Character  of  Him  who  sent 
them  forth  to  run  swiftly  upon  earth,  of  the  points,  as 
in  the  case  of  prayer  and  immortality,  in  which  they 
seem  to  come  into  collision  with  science,  of  the  way  they 
touch  political  and  artistic  questions,  and  finally  of  the 


269475 


iv  Preface. 

varied  course  of  modern  liuman  life  from  cMldhood  to 
old  age,  I  have  striven  to  keep  my  main  idea  before  me 
and  to  support  it  by  proof,  though  I  have  not  turned 
aside  to  insist  upon  it  in  direct  words.  In  one  word 
I  believe,  and  rest  all  I  say  upon  the  truth,  as  I  think, 
that  in  Him  was  Life,  and  that  this  Life,  in  the 
thoughts  and  acts  which  flowed  from  it,  was,  and  is, 
and  always  will  be  the  Light  of  the  race  of  Man. 

In  writing  one  is  often  deceived  by  half-memories — 
one  remembers  the  thoughts  but  not  whence  they  have 
been  derived  5  and  I  have  found  since  this  book  went  to 
press  that  in  two  places  at  least  I  am  indebted  for  my 
words  to  other  men — to  IN'eander's  '  Life  of  Julian,'  in 
a  passage  in  Sermon  iv.,  on  the  civilising  influence  of 
Christianity,  and  to  Fichte's  'Tocation  of  Man,'  in 
Sermon  xiv.,  for  a  portion  of  the  argument  from  our 
consciousness  of  Will  and  its  results  to  the  existence  of 
a  '  self-active  reason  and  a  living  Will.'  With  much 
of  richte's  philosophy  I  disagree,  but  beyond,  or  rather 
within  his  philosophy  there  is  teaching  both  on  life, 
morality,  and  religion,  which  makes  him  more  worth 
the  reading  of  persons  troubled  by  the  great  spiritual 
questions  than  any  other  of  the  German  philosophers. 

Stopfoed  a.  Beooke. 

London  :  January  1872. 


CONTENTS, 


SERMON  I. 

THE  FITNES3  OF  CURIsnANITY  FOR  MANKIND. 

VXQU 

Matt  xiii.  31,  32. — '  Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them,  saying, 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  \fhich  a 
man  took,  and  sowed  in  his  field:  which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all 
seeds:  but  when  it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  hcrljs,  and 
becometh  a  tree,  so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the 
branches  thereof  * 1 


SERMON  II. 

THE  FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND. 

Matt.  xiii.  31,  32. — 'Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them,  saying. 
The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  a 
man  took,  and  sowed  in  his  field  :  which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all 
see<ls :  but  when  it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herbs,  and 
becometh  a  tree,  so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the 
branches  thereof ' 17 

SERMON  III. 

THE  HIGHER  JUDAISM  AND   CHRISTIANITF. 

Matt.  V.  17. — 'Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law,  or  the 

prophets :  I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil.' 
Mark  sii.  37. — '  And  the  common  people  heard  him  gladly '         .        .31 

SERMON  IV. 

JUDAISM  AND  CHRISTIANITY. 

Luke  iii.  17.— '  TVTiose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  ho  will  throughly  purge 
his  floor,  and  will  gather  the  wheat  into  his  gamer ;  but  the  chafif  ho 
will  burn  with  fire  unquenchable  ' 47 


vi  Contents. 


SEEMON  V. 

THE  CENTRAL  TRUTH  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

PAGB 

John  i.  14.—'  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us  '      .     63 
SEEMON  VI. 

THE  CENTRAL  TRUTH  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 
John  i.  14. — '  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us '      .75 

SEEMON  VII. 

THE  BEAUTY  OF  CHRIST S  CHARACTER. 
Isaiah  xxxiii.  17. — 'Thine  eyes  shall  see  the  King  in  his  hcauty '         .     89 

SEEMON   VIII. 

THE  BEAUTY  OF  CHRIST S  CHARACTER. 

Isaiah  xxxiii.  17. — 'Thine  eyes  shall  see  the  King  in  his  beauty'         .  102 

SEEMON  IX. 

THE  BEAUTY  OF  CHRIST S  CHARACTER, 

Isaiah  xxxiii.  17. — '  Thine  eyes  shall  see  the  King  in  his  beauty  '        .117 

SEEMON  X. 

PRAYER   AND  NATURAL  LAW. 

James  iv.  3. — '  Ye  ask,  and  receive  not,  because  yo  ask  amiss,  that  ye 
may  consume  it  upon  your  lusts  ' 132 

SEEMON  XI. 

THE.  FORCE  OF  PRAYER. 

Matt.  vii.  7. — '  Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you ;    seek,  and  ye  shall 
find ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you '  .         .         .         .146 

SEEMON  XII. 

IMMORTALITY. 

Luke  XX.  38. — '  For  he  is  not.  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living :  for 
all  live  unto  Wka ' 160 


Contents.  vii 


SERMON  XIII. 

IMMORTALITY. 

PAOI 

Luke  XX.  38. — '  For  he  in  not  a  God  of  the  dcnd,  but  of  the  living :  for 
all  live  unto  liiiu'   .         .         .         .         .         .         ,         .         .         .  173 

SERMON  XIV. 

IMMORTALITY. 

Luke  XX.  38. — '  Fur  he  is  not  a  Qod  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living :  for 
aill  live  unto  him  '  .        .         . 19 1 

SERMON  XV. 

IMMORTALITY. 

Luko  XX.  38. — '  For  ho  is  not  ft  God  of  the  dend,  but  of  the  living :  for 
all  live  unto  him ' 21.1 

SERMON  XVI. 
'  melencolia: 

Eccles.  i.  18. — 'For  in  much  wisdom  is  much  grief:  and  he  tliat  in- 
creaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow ' 230 

SERMON  XVII. 
•  melexcolia: 

Eccles.  i.  18. — 'For  in  much  wisdom  is  much  grief:  and  he  that  in- 
creaseth knowledge  increaseth  sorrow '    243 

SERMON  XVIIL 

ART  EXPENDITURE. 

John  xii.  6. — 'Why  was  not  this  ointment  sold  for  three  hundred 
pence,  and  given  to  the  poor? ' 2oS 

SERMON  XIX. 

CHILD  LIFE. 

Luke  xviii.  16. — 'Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid 
them  not :  for  of  such  is  the  Kingdom  of  God'        ....  275 

SERMON  XX. 
YOUTH,   AND  ITS  QUESTIONS  TODAY. 

Matt,  xxviii.  20. — '  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world' 290 


vlli  Contents. 


SEEMON  XXI. 

YOUTH,  AND  ITS  HOPE  OF  PROGRESS. 

PAGE 

Matt,  xxviii.  20. — '  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  tlic  end  ,>f  the 
world' 305 

SEEMON  XXn. 
THE  PRESENTIMENTS  OF  YOUTH. 

Matt,  xxviii.  20. — *Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world' 320 

SEEMON  XXIII. 
THE  MID-DAY  OF  LIFE. 

Eccles.  xii.  1. — *  Eemember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth, 
while  the  evil  days  come  not,  nor  the  years  draw  nigh,  when  thou 
shalt  say,  I  have  no  pleasure  in  them  ' 335 

SEEMON  XXIV. 
THE  AFTERNOON  OF  LIFE. 

Psalm  ciii.  5. — '  Who  eatisfieth  thy  mouth  with  good  things ;  so  that 
thy  youth  is  renewed  like  the  eagle's' 351 

SEEMON  XXV. 
THE  AFTERNOON  OF  LIFE. 

Psalm  viii.  4,  5. — •  Lord,  what  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ? 
and  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?  Eor  thou  hast  made 
him  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  and  hast  crowned  him  with  glory 
and  honour' 365 

SEEMON  XXVI. 
THE  AFTERNOON  OF  LIFE. 

Isaiah  xxxviii.  15. — '  I  shall  go  softly  all  my  years  in  the  hit'-emess  of 
my  soul '         ...........  380 

SEEMON  XXVII. 
THE  GLORY  AND   WORK  OF  OLD  AGE. 

Luke  ii,  29,  30. — '  Lord,  now  lettost  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace, 
according  to  thy  word  :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation '         ,  393 


SERMONS, 


rUE  FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND, 

'  Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them,  spying;  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  a  man  took,  and 
sowed  in  his  field :  which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all  seeds :  but  when 
it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree,  so 
that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof* — 
Matt.  xiii.  31,  32. 

We  are  told,  in  one  of  the  Arabian  stories  whicli  charmed 
our  childhood,  of  a  fe,iry  tent  which  a  young  prince 
brought,  hidden  in  a  walnut-shell,  to  his  father.  Placed 
in  the  council-chamber,  it  grew  till  it  encanopied  the 
king  and  his  ministers.  Taken  into  the  court-yard,  it 
filled  the  space  till  all  the  household  stood  beneath  its 
shade.  Brought  into  the  midst  of  the  great  plain 
without  the  city,  where  all  the  army  was  encamped,  it 
spread  its  mighty  awning  all  abroad,  till  it  gave  shelter 
to  a  host.  It  had  infinite  flexibility,  infinite  expan- 
siveness. 

We  are  told  in  our  sacred  books  of  a  religion  given 
to  man,  which,  at  its  first  setting  forward,  was  less  than 
the  least  of  all  seeds.  It  was  the  true  fairy  tent  for  the 
spirits  of  men.     It  grew  till  it  embraced  a  few  Jews  of 


2       The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

every  class :  and  men  thonglit,  '  Now  it  will  do  no  more , 
it  can  never  snit  tlie  practical  sense  of  the  Eoman,  nor 
shelter  beneath,  its  sway  the  subtile  intellect  of  the  Greek. 
To  do  one  is  improbable,  to  do  both  is  impossible.' 
Curious  to  say,  it  did  both.  It  made  the  Roman  more 
practical;  it  made  the  Greek  intellect  alive  again. 
When  Rome  fell,  and  during  her  long  decay,  some  may 
have  said :  '  This  boasted  religion  may  suit  civilisation, 
but  it  can  never  adapt  itself  to  barbarism.'  But  it  ex- 
panded in  new  directions  to  embrace  the  transalpine 
nations,  and  took  new  forms  to  suit  them  with  an  un- 
equalled flexibility.  Soon  it  covered  Europe  with  its 
shadow,  and  in  a  continent  where  types  of  race  are 
oddly  and  vitally  varied,  it  found  acceptance  with  all. 
It  has  gone  abroad  since  then,  and  reached  out  its  arms 
to  the  Oriental,  the  African,  the  American  tribes,  and 
the  islands  of  the  seas.  And  however  small  may  have 
been  its  success  at  present,  there  is  one  thing  in  which 
it  differs  from  every  other  religion — it  has  been  found 
capable  of  being  assimilated  by  all,  from  the  wild 
negro  of  the  west  coast  to  the  educated  gentleman  of 
India.  I  speak  of  the  teaching  of  Christ,  not  of  un- 
yielding Christian  systems;  and  nothing^  is  more  re- 
markable in  that  teaching  than  the  way  in  which  it 
throws  off,  like  a  serpent,  one  after  another,  the  sloughs 
of  system,  and  spreads  undivided  in  the  world,  and 
operates  unspent,  by  its  own  divine  vitality. 

Now  it  is  this  extraordinary  power  of  easy  expansion, 
this  power  of  adapting  itself  to  the  most  diverse  forms  of 
thought,  which  is  one  strong  proof  of  the  eternal  fitness 
of  Christianity  for  mankind.     This  is  our  subject. 


The  Filtiess  of  Christianity  fof"  Mankind*      3 

It  has  these  powers,  first,  because. of  its  want  of 
system. 

Christ  gave  ideas,  but  not  their  forms.  We  have  oikj 
connected  discourse  of  his,  and  there  is  not  a  vcstigo 
of  systematic  theology  in  it.  Nay  more,  many  of  tho 
statements  are  so  incapable  of  being  grasped  by  tho 
intellect  acting  alone,  and  so  ambiguous  and  paradoxical 
to  the  pure  reason,  that  they  seem  to  have  been  spoken 
for  the.  despair  of  systematisers. 

What  is  one  to  do  with  a  sentence  like  this — *  Blessed 
are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God '  ?  We 
cannot  make  a  dogma  out  of  it;  we  cannot  get  it 
into  a  system ;  it  breaks  down  under  logical  analysis. 
'  What  is  it  to  be  pure  in  heart  ? '  asks  soma  defining 
person ;  '  does  it  refer  to  general  cleanliness  from  all 
sin,  or  freedom  from  the  special  sin  of  unchaste  thought  ? 
^Yhat  is  it  to  see  God  ?  Above  all,  what  is  God  ?  That 
question  is  insoluble,  unknowable.' 

We  cannot  call  a  teaching  systematic  which  in  this 
way  leaves  aside  the  understanding  unless  first  in- 
structed by  feeling,  which  appeals  first  of  all  to  certain 
spiritual  powers  in  man  which  it  declares  to  be  the 
most  human  powers  he  possesses.  Such  phrases  have 
no  intellectual  outlines  ;  purity  of  heart  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  region  of  the  understanding ;  God  is  not 
an  intellectual  conception.  But  if  man  has  distinctly' 
spiritual  emotions  and  desires,  words  like  these  thrill 
him  like  music. 

Indeed,  there  is  a  fine  analogy  to  Christ's  words  in 
music.  It  is  the  least  definable  of  all  the  arts ;  it  ap- 
peals to  emotion,  not  to  reason.     Neither  you  nor  I  can 


4       Tlie  Fihiest  of  Christianity  for  Mankind, 

saj  of  that  air  of  Mozart's  that  it  means  this  or  that. 
It  means  one  thing  to  me,  another  thing  to  you.  It 
leaves,  however,  an  indefinite  but  similar  impression 
upon  us  both — a  sense  of  exquisite  melody  which  soothes 
life,  a  love  of  a  life  in  harmony  with  the  impression 
made,  and  an  affection  for  the  man  who  gave  us  so 
dehcate  an  emotion.  So  is  it  with  the  words  of  Christ. 
The  understanding  cannot  define  them ;  the  spirit  re- 
ceives them,  and  each  man  receives  them  in  accord- 
ance with  the  state  of  his  spirit.  To  one  these  words, 
'  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they  shall  see  God,' 
are  solemn  with  warning,  to  another  they  are  soothing 
with  comfort ;  to  one  they  mean  battle,  to  another 
peace;  to  one  they  sound  like  music  on  the  waters,  to 
another  like  the  trump  of  doom. 

Could  you  define  the  meaning  of  Mozart's  air,  so  that 
it  should  be  the  same  to  all,  how  much  had  been  lost ! 
Could  you  do  the  same  by  Christ's  words,  what  a  mis- 
fortune !  To  limit  them  to  one  meaning  would  be  to 
destroy  their  life. 

Again,  take  the  paradoxical  sayings.  '  If  a  man 
smite  thee  on  the  one  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other.' 
Submit  that  to  the  criticism  of  the  understanding, 
without  permitting  spiritual  feeling  to  play  upon  it, 
and  it  becomes  absurd.  Define  it  accurately,  and  there 
is  either  too  much  or  too  little  left  of  it.  Tell  the  man 
who  has  a  tendency  to  fear  that  he  is  to  take  it  literally, 
and  he  becomes  a  coward  on  principle  ;  tell  the  same  to 
another  who  has  military  traditions  of  honour,  and  he 
says  that  Christ's  teaching  is  not  fit  for  practical  life. 
But  do  not  attempt  to  define  it,  let  the  spirit  of  each 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.       5 

man  explain  it  to  himself,  and  the  truth  which  is  in  it 
will  work  its  way. 

There  is  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  Christ  would  have 
refused  to  explain  it.  All  He  would  have  said.  He  did 
say :  *  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hear.' 

It  seems  as  if  Christ  distinctly  chose  indefiniteness 
in  certain  parts  of  his  teaching,  in  order  to  shut 
out  the  possibility  of  any  rigid  system  of  Christian 
thought. 

Of  course  there  are  positive  and  definite  portions  of 
his  teaching.  '  Do  unto  others  as  ye  would  they  should 
do  unto  you.'  '  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect.'  '  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God.' 
'  Love  one  another,  even  as  I  have  loved  you.'  These 
were  definite  statements,  which  appealed  to  the  spirit 
of  man,  but  even  in  their  case  Christ  never  wove  them 
into  a  fixed  system  of  theology,  nor  hardened  them  into 
an  unchanging  mode  of  practice. 

How  was  He  to  systematise  aspiration  to  perfection, 
or  define  the  love  of  man  to  man,  or  explain  in  limited 
words  the  passionate  desire  to  be  redeemed  from  the 
moral  degradation  of  sin  ?  Was  He  to  reply  to  men  who 
asked  Him  to  say  what  He  meant  by  *  our '  in  *  Our 
Father '? 

No ;  the  statements  were  positive,  but  they  had  to  do 
with  things  not  knowable  by  the  understanding,  not 
definable  by  the  intellect.  Therefore,  Christ's  religion 
can  never  be  made  into  a  system.  It  will  form  the  basis 
and  the  life  of  system  after  system — it  will  never  be 
itself  a  system.  And,  because  of  this,  it  has  the  power 
of  expanding  with  the  religious  growth  of  the  world. 


6       The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind, 

and  of  adapting  itself  to  the  religious  standpoints  of 
various  nations. 

Men  must  form  sjste  m^,  it  belongs  to  ournature  to 
do  so.  Fifty  years  did  not  pass  after  the  death  of 
Christ  before  Christianity  was  cast  into  a  mould,  and 
intellectual  propositions  formed  around  it.  But  even 
then  S.  Paul  cast  it  into  one  mould,  and  S.  John  into 
one  quite  different.  It  was  flexible  to  both,  and  retained 
in  both  these  men  its  root  ideas  and  its  spiritual  in- 
fluence, so  that  its  spirit  through  S.  John  had  power 
upon  the  Oriental  and  through  S.  Paul  upon  the 
Western  world. 

A  century  afterwards  tjie  modes  of  representing  Chris- 
tianity changed,  and  continued  to  change  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  in  that  intellectual  time,  till  there 
were  as  many  systems  of  Christianity  as  there  were 
nations  in  the  Church.  Its  flexibility  was  proved  to  be 
almost  infinite.  And  it  has  continued  so  up  to  the 
present  time.  It  is  systematised  in  three  or  four  forms 
in  England  at  this  moment,  and  they  may  all  have 
perished  in  a  century ;  but  the  spirit  of  Christ's  teach- 
ing will  have  remained,  expanding  to  suit  the  new 
thoughts  of  men,  and  the  progress  of  the  whole  nation. 
Therefore,  it  is  contained  in  the  idea  of  Christianity  that 
its  outward  form  should  be  not  only  subject  to  continual 
change,  but  should  even  be  different  at  one  and  the 
same  time  in  different  nations. 

Hence,  the  fighting  and  opposition  of  sect  to  sect  which 
has  been  objected  to  Christianity  is  one  of  those  things 
which  flow  from  its  very  nature.  If  its  founder  left 
it  nnsystematised,  it  was  sura. to  be  systematised  in 


The  Fitness  of  CknsUanily  for  Mankind,      7 

different  ways,  and  these  differences  *  would  produce 
contention.  Contention  is  an  evil,  but  it  is  a  less  evil 
than  the  spiritual  stagnation  which  would  have  followed 
upon  a  hard  and  fast  system. 

Moreover,  if  Christianity  was  to  expand,  it  was  neces- 
sary that  its  truths  should  be  the  subjects  of  contro- 
versy, that  different  and  opposing  systems  might  place 
now  one  of  its  ideas,  now  another,  in  vivid  light ;  so 
that,  by  the  slow  exhaustion  of  false  views,  it  might 
come  fortli  clear  at  last,  unrobing  itself  as  a  mountain 
from  the  mists  of  the  dawn. 

Make  any  religion  into  a  system,  define  its  outlines 
clearly,  and,  before  long,  there  will  be  no  movement  of 
thought  about  it,  no  enthusiasm  of  feeling,  ho  vital  in- 
terest felt  in  its  ideas.  It  suits  the  time  at  which  it  is 
put  foi-ward,  but  when  that  time  has  past,  it  has  nothing 
to  say  to  men.  But  let  system  be  foreign  to  it — let  its 
original  ideas  be  capable  of  taking  various  religious 
forms — and  it  will  have  the  power  of.  expanding  for 
ever,  of  becoming  systematic  without  ever  binding  itself 
to  system;  changing  its  form  not  only  in  every  time 
but  in  every  country,  and  growing  in  a  direct  ratio  to 
the  growth  of  the  world. 

Therefore  we  say,  the  original  want  of  system  in 
Christ's  teaching  ensures  its  power  of  expansion,  and 
that  fits  it*  for  the  use  of  the  Race,  now  and  hereafter. 

But  if  this  were  all,  it  would  prove  nothing.  There 
must  be  a  quality  in  a  religion  destined  to  be  of  eternal 
fitness  for  men  which  directly  appeals  to  all  men,  or 
else  its  want  of  system  will  only  minister  to  its  ruin. 
And  if  that  quality  exist,  it  must  be  one  which  we 


8       The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

cannot  conceive  as  ever  failing  to  interest  men,  and 
therefore  as  expanding  with  the  progress  of  Man. 

We  find  this  in  the  identification  of  Christianity  with 
the  life  of  a  perfect  Man. 

What  is  Christianity?  Christianity  is  Christ — the 
whole  of  Human  Nature  made  at  one  with  God.  Is 
it  possible  to  leave  that  behind  as  the  race  advances  ? 
On  the  contrary,  the  very  idea  supposes  that  the 
religion  which  has  it  at  its  root  has  always  an  ideal 
to  present  to  men,  and  therefore  always  an  interest  for 
men.  As  long  as  men  are  men,  can  they  ever  have  a 
higher  moral  conception  of  God  than  that  given  to  them 
through  the  character  of  a  perfect  Man,  and  can  we 
conceive  in  centuries  to  come  men  ever  getting  beyond 
that  idea  as  long  as  they  are  in  the  human  state  ?  The 
conception  of  what  the  ideal  Man  is,  will  change,  as 
men  grow  more  or  less  perfect,  or  as  mankind  is  seen 
more  or  less  as  a  vast  organism ;  but  as  long  as  there  is 
a  trace  of  imperfection  in  us,  this  idea — that  perfect 
humanity,  that  is,  perfect  fatherhood,  perfect  love, 
perfect  justice — all  our  imperfect  goodnesses — realised 
in  perfection,  and  impersonated  in  One  Being,  is  God  to 
us,  can  never  fail  to  create  religion  and  kindle  worship. 
It  is  the  last  absurdity,  looking  at  the  root  ideas  of 
Christianity,  to  say  that  it  is  ceasing  to  be  a  religion 
for  the  race. 

The  'religion  of  *  Humanity '  and  the  'worship  of 
Humanity '  considered  as  a  great  and  living  whole,  is  the 
latest  phase  into  which  religion  apart  from  Christianity 
has  been  thrown.  I  am  unable  to  see  how  it  differs,  so 
far  as  it  asserts  a  principle,  from  the  great  Christian  idea. 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.      9 

Everytliing  it  says  about  Humanity  and  our  duties  to 
Humanity  seems  to  me  to  bo  implicitly  contained  in 
Christ's  teaching,  and  to  be  no  more  than  an  expansion 
of  the  original  Christian  idea  of  a  divine  Man  in  whom 
all  the  race  is  contained,  and  who  is,  ideally,  the  race. 
But  I  am  far  from  wishing  this  new  religious  idea 
to  be  set  aside  as  unworthy  of  consideration,  nor  do  I 
join  in  the  cry  which  has  been  raised  against  it.  On 
the  contrary,  I  wish  it  to  be  carefully  studied,  that 
we  may  get  all  the  good  out  of  it  wo  can,  and  add 
many  of  its  ideas  to  our  present  form  of  Christianity. 
Most  of  its  positive  teaching  is  Christian  in  thought 
and  feeling,  though  it  denies  or  ignores  other  Christian 
ideas  which  seem  necessary  for  a  human  religion.  It 
would  be  untrue  in  a  Christian  teacher  to  despise  or 
abuse  a  religion  which  puts  self-sacrifice  forward  as  the 
foundation  of  practical  duty  not  only  among  men;  but 
among  societies  and  nations.  It  would  be  equally 
untrue  if  I  did  not  say  that  the  refusal  to  consider 
the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  and  the  immortality  of 
man,  will,  in  the  end,  make  that  religion  die  of  starva- 
tion. 

But  with  regard  to  the  special  point  in  question — the 
worship  of  a  great  Being,  called  Humanity — there  is  this 
difference,  and  it  is  a  radical  one,  between  Christianity 
and  the  religion  of  Positivism,  that  the  Humanity  the 
latter  worships  is  indefinite  to  the  religious  emotions, 
while  its  system  is  definite  to  the  understanding.  It  is 
in  this  the  exact  reverse  of  Christianity,  which  has  no 
system  capable  of  being  defined  by  the  understanding, 
and  possesses  a  Human  Person  distinctly  defined  for  the 


10     The  Fdtness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

emotions.  It  is  plain  that,  if  wliat  I  have  said  be  worth 
anything,  the  definite  system  in  this  religion  will  be  an 
element  of  death  in  it  and  forbid  its  contemporaneous 
growth  with  the  race.  It  is  no  matter  of  donbt  to  me, 
that  the  worship  of  a  Humanity — which  it  needs  an 
active  intellectual  effort  to  conceive,  and  a  large  know- 
ledge of  history  to  conceive  adequately,  or  which  se^ 
eludes  one  sex  as  a  special  representative  of  its  ideal, 
— can  never  stir  religious  emotion  nor  awake  action 
based  on  love  to  it,  in  the  mass  of  mankind,  however 
much  it  may  do  so  in  particular  persons.  The  general 
mass  of  men  require  that  this  ideal  Man  be  con- 
centrated for  them  into  one  person  with  whom  they 
can  have  distinct  personal  relations,  whom  they  can 
personally  love  for  his  love,  and  reverence  for  his  per- 
fection. It  is  not  easy,  knowing  mankind  as  we  do 
— seeing  its  meanness,  cruelty,  ajid  weakness,  as  well 
as  all  its  nobility — to  represent  it  to  ourselves  as  an 
object  of  worship,  or  to  care  paa-ticularly  whether  its 
blessing  rests  on  us  or  not.  Than  this,  it  is  certainly 
more  easy  to  conceive  as  an  object  of  worship,  God, 
revealed  in  will  and  character  by  a  perfect  Man ;  and 
more  simple  to  think  of  one  Man  embodying  all  the 
Race  than  of  the  whole  Race  as  one  Man.  It  is  a 
more  satisfying  thought,  to  give  our  love  to  human 
nature  as  seen  in  Christ,  without  evil,  full  of  perfect 
love  and  sympathy,  both  male  and  female  in  thought  and 
feeling,  than  to  Mankind  as  seen  in  history.  It  is  more 
delightful  to  love  men  as  seen  in  Him,  for  the  glorious 
ideal  they  will  attain  to,  than  to  love  them  as  they-  are, 
and  without  a  sure  hope  of  their  eternal  progress ;  and 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind,     i  r 

that  the  blessing  of  Christ's  perfect  Manhood  and 
Womanhood  should  rest  upon  us,  that  his  love,  pity, 
strength,  support  and  peace,  should  belong  to  us  and 
accompany  us ;  that  He  should  attend  us  as  a  personal 
friend  and  interest  Himself  in  our  lives,  till  they  reach 
the  perfection  of  his  life ;  and  that  He  should  be  doing 
the  same  for  all  our  brothers  as  for  us; — does  seem 
more  fitted  to  kindle  worship  and  stir  emotion  than  the 
thought  that  we  are  parts  of  a  vast  organism  which 
continues  to  live,  like  the  body,  by  the  ceaseless  and 
eternal  death  of  its  parts. 

It  may  be  possible  to  feel  a  pleasure  in  sacrificing 
oneself  for  the  good  of  this  great  Being  which  lives  by 
consuming  its  own  children,  and  to  enjoy  the  thought 
of  immortality  in  its  continued  progress  without  ever 
personally  realising  that  immortality.  But  after  all,  this 
overshadowing  and  abstract  *  Humanity,'  which  crushes 
us  while  it  moves  on,  is  not  attractive,  and  is  more 
likely  in  the  end  to  create  despair  and  anger  than  to 
give  life  to  hope  and  love. 

But  the  ideal  Man  in  Christ  is  very  different*  It 
demands  the  same  self-sacrifice,  but  it  does  not  an- 
nihilate men.  And  in  itself  it  is  intensely  interesting  to 
men  because  it  is  so  perfectly  human.  Whether  men 
are  Christians  or  not,  that  exquisite  life  of  Christ  will 
always  attract  them ;  so  true  to  childhood,  youth,  and 
manhood;  so  simple,  yet  so  complex;  so  womanly,  yet 
80  manly;  in  love,  in  honour  and  in  truth,  in  nqble 
endurance,  in  resolute  will  and  purity,  so  ideal,  yet 
so  real  to  that  which  we  feel  we  ought  to  be,  or 
may  be,  that  there  is  no  possible  age  of  the  world  in 


T  2     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind, 

fclie  far-off  future,  which  will  not,  as  long  as  men  are 
human,  love  that  with  the  love  which  is  worship. 

So  the  ideal  manhood  which  is  at  the  root  of  Chris- 
tianity ensures  to  it  a  power  of  expanding  with  the 
growth  of  the  race  ;  and  this  power  is  one  proof  at  least 
of  the  eternal  fitness  of  Christ's  teaching  for  mankind. 

The  third  quality  in  it  which  ensures  its  expansive- 
ness  is  that  it  has  directly  to  do  with  the  subjects 
which  have  always  stirred  the  greatest  curiosity, 
awakened  the  profoundest  thought,  and  produced  the 
highest  poetry  in  man.  And  these  are  the  subjects 
which  are  insoluble  by  logical  analysis,  unknowable 
by  the  understanding : — ^What  is  God,  and  His  relation 
to  us  ?  Whence  have  we  come  ?  whither  are  we  going  ? 
What  is  evil,  and  why  is  it  here  ?  What  is  truth,  and 
is  there  any  positive  truth  at  all  ?  Do  we  die  or  live 
for  ever? 

It  is  the  fashion  among  some  to  say,  '  Do  not  trouble 
yourself  about  the  insoluble ;'  and  there  are  those  who 
succeed,  perhaps,  in  doing  so.  Well,  I  think  them 
wrong,  as  they  think  me  wrong.  No  one  feels  more 
intensely  than  I  do  the  pain  of  not  having  things  clear — 
the  vital  torment  of  a  thirst  ever  renewed,  and  not  as 
yet  fully  satisfied ;  but  I  had  rather  keep  the  pain  and 
the  thirst  than  annihilate,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  portion 
of  my  human  nature.  I  must  trouble  myself  about 
these  things,  and  so  must  others,  and  the  trouble  has  its 
source  in  an  integral  part  of  our  human  nature.  We 
must  tear  away  that  part  before  we  can  get  rid  of  these 
subjects.  To  deny  that  this  part  of  our  nature  exists 
is   absurd,   to   affirm  that   it   has   been   produced   by 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.     1 3 

education  in  men,  not  having  originally  been  in  their 
nature,  is  to  beg  the  question.  What  we  have  to  do 
Avith  is  what  lies  before  us,  and  if  I  were  asked  what 
is  the  most  universal  characteristic  of  man,  that  which 
most  clearly  distinguishes  him  from  the  lower  animals, 
I  should  answer,  that  it  was  the  passion  for  solving 
what  is  called  the  insoluble,  the  desire  of  knowing  what 
is  said  to  be  unknowable. 

I  meet  that  longing  everywhere.  There  is  no  history 
which  is  not  full  of  it.  There  is  no  savage  nation 
which  has  learnt  the  first  rudiments  of  thought,  in 
which  you  do  not  find  it.  There  is  no  poetry 
which  does  not  bear  the  traces  of  it — nay,  whose 
noblest  passages  are  not  inspired  by  it.  There  is 
scarcely  a  single  philosophy  which  does  not  work  at  it, 
or  at  least  acknowledge  it  by  endeavouring  to  lay  it 
aside.  One  cannot  talk  for  an  hour  to  a  friend  without 
touching  it  at  some  point,  nor  take  up  a  newspaper 
without  seeing  its  influence ;  and  if  Christ  had  started 
a  religion  for  mankind  with  the  dictum,  Lay  aside 
thinking  about  these  questions,  his  religion  would 
seem  to  be  unfit  for  men ;  it  would  have  shut  out  the 
whole  of  the  most  curious  part  of  our  being.  But  He 
did  the  exact  contrary.  He  recognised  these  questions  as 
the  first  and  the  most  important.  He  came.  He  said, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  enabling  us  to  solve  them 
sufficiently.  He  said  that  truth  was  to  be  found,  that 
God  could  be  known,  that  immortality  was  a  reality, 
that  evil  was  to  be  overthrown,  that  we  came  from  God 
and  went  to  God. 

But  to  solve  these  questions  and  to  know  God  is  not 


1 4     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

done  at  once.  It  is  the  work  of  a  lifetime.  Christ  said 
that  there  were  answers  to  be  found ;  He  did  not  reveal 
the  answers  at  once.  He  did  not  wish  to  take  away 
from  men  the  discipline  of  personal  effort,  nor  to  free 
them  from  the  pain,  the  victory  over  which  would  give 
them  spiritual  strength,  the  endurance  of  which  would 
make  them  men.  He  put  them  in  the  wa.y  of  solving 
'  these  questions  for  themselves.  By  asking  and  seeking, 
by  prayer  and  hmmility,  they  were  to  solve  the  appa- 
rently insoluble.  By  doing  his  will,  by  living  his  life  of 
holiness,  self-sacrifice,  and  devotion  to  truth,  they  were 
at  last  to  know  the  truth. 

Therefore,  because  these  problems  which  are  called 
insoluble  were  left  by  Christ  as  personal  questions 
which  every  man  born  into  the  world  must  solve  for 
himself,  human  effort  after  God  can  never  suffer  the 
stagnation  which  complete  knowledge  would  produce 
in  imperfect  man.  Eeligious  emotions,  the  play  of 
feeling  and  intellect  around  spiritual  things,  desire  after 
higher  good,  prayer,  active  work  towards  a  more  perfect 
Itove  and  towards  the  winning  of  truth,  are  all  kept 
up  in  us  by  the  sense  of  imperfect  knowledge,  imperfect 
spiritual  being,  and,  in  addition,  by  the  hope  which 
grows  stronger  through  the  experience  of  growth,  that 
we  shall  know  even  as  we  are  known,  and  become 
perfect  even  as  our  God. 

Remove  from  religion  these  difficult  questions,  and 
the  hope  and  the  passion  of  discovering  their  answers, 
and  I  believe  that  all  religious  emotions  will  die,  and 
all  religion  of  any  kind  finally  perish  in  contact  with 
the  world. 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Alankind,     1 5 

It  is  because  Christianity  as  taught  by  Christ  acknow- 
ledges these  questions  as  necessarily  human ;  it  is 
because  it  leaves  their  solution  to  personal  effort,  and  so 
secures  an  undying  source  of  religious  effort  and  emo- 
tion ;  it  is  because  it  promises  that  those  who  follow  the 
method  of  Christ,  and  live  his  life,  shall  solve  them ; 
that  Christianity  belongs*  to  men,  is  calculated  to  ex- 
pand, to  suit  men  in  every  age.  If  so,  there  is  another 
reason  which  may  be  alleged  for  its  eternal  fitness  for 
the  race. 

Lastly,  if  what  Christianity  says  be  true,  that  we  shall 
all  enter  into  a  life  everlasting,  these  three  qualities  in 
Christ's  religion  of  which  I  have  spoken  are  not  without 
their  meaning  or  their  value  to  us  there. 

That  our  religion  should  be  without  a  system,  will 
enable  us,  in  a  new  life  and  imder  new  conditions,  to 
reorganise  it  without  difficulty,  to  fit  it  into  the  new 
circumstances  of  our  being,  to  use  it  in  novel  ways. 

That  our  religion  is  a  human  religion,  that  it  appeals 
directly  to  human  nature,  that  it  is  nothing  apart  from 
mankind,  that  it  is  woven  up  with  all  the  desires  and 
hopes  and  sorrows  of  men,  that  it  bids  us  concentrate 
all  the  race  into  One  Person,  and  love  all  men  in  Him, 
that  it  throws  all  our  effort  and  enthusiasm  on  the 
progress  of  mankind,  these  do  not  belong  to  this 
world  alone.  If  we  live  again,  we  shall  live  in  a  higher 
way,  in  the  race  ;  for  we  shall  live  in  Christ,  not  an  iso- 
lated life,  but  a  life  in  all  mankind.  We  shall  be  more 
united  with  our  fellow-men,  more  ready  to  give  ourselves 
away  to  them,  more  interested  in  the  progress  of 
mankind,  more  able  to  help.    Never,  aa  longp-  as  Christ 


1 6     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

is,  can  we  forget,  or  cease  our  communion  with,  tlie 
whole  world  of  men. 

And  finally,  that  even  after  attaining  much,  enough 
at  least  to  set  us  in  all  the  peace  which  is  good  for  us, 
there  should  remain,  as  I  think  there  will  remain,  in  the 
eternal  life,  certain  questions  which  we  shall  have  to  solve, 
certain  things  which  man  cannot  wholly  know,  it  will 
not  be  an  evil  but  a  good  thing  for  us.  Tor  that  there 
should  always  be  things  above  us  and  unknown,  ensures 
our  eternal  aspiration,  ensures  to  us  the  passionate 
delight  of  ceaseless  progress. 


Tlie  Fitiuss  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.     1 7 


TRE  FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND. 

*  Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them,  saying,  The  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  wlirch  a  man  took,  and 
sowed  in  his  field  :  "which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all  seeds :  but  when 
it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree,  so 
that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof.' — 
Matt.  xiii.  31,  32. 

Those  who  love  variety  of  colour  and  variety  of  form 
can  scarcely  reap  a  deeper  pleasure  than  is  his  who 
walks  slowly  through  the  lower  part  of  one  of  the 
Italian  valleys  of  the  Alps  when  spring  is  at  its  height. 
The  meadows  are  full  of  flowers,  at  once  so  brilliant, 
soft,  and  manifold  of  hue,  that  the  grass  seems  sown 
with  dust  of  rainbows.  The  grey  boulders,  which  lie 
like  castles  on  the  sloping  lawns,  are  stained  scarlet  and 
gold  and  bronze  with  many  lichens.  Chestnut  and 
walnut  spread  their  rich  leaves  below ;  above,  the  oak 
clusters  in  the  hollow  places ;  higher  still,  the  pines 
climb  the  heights  in  dark  battalions.  Colour,  form, 
development,  are  all  different;  each  flower,  leaf,  and 
tree  each  variety  of  grass  or  lichen,  has  its  own 
peculiar  beauty,  its  own  individuality. 

It  seems  impossible  to  include  them  all  under  one 
Term,  to  say  that  they  are  all  substantially  one  thing. 
Yet  they  are  aU  transmuted   sunshine.     Every  fibre, 
2 


1 8     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

every  cell,  every  atomic  arrangement  which,  enables 
each  of  them  to  give  us  the  sensation  of  red,  or  violet, 
or  v^hat  colour  lies  between  these,  has  been  built  up 
through  means  of  the  force  or  the  forces  of  the  sun- 
shine. Nevertheless,  this  one  original  element  has 
been  modified  by  the  tendency — I  use  a  word  which 
but  expresses  our  ignorance — of  each  seed  to  assume 
a  specialised  form  at  a  certain  stage  in  its  growth ;  to 
be  modified  by  what  one  would  call  in  mankind  its 
character.  So  that  we  have  two  things :  one  simple 
source  of  vegetable  life,  infinite  forms  and  modifications 
of  form  through  which  that  force  is  conditioned. 

It  is  a  happy  analogy  by  which  to  arrive  at  the  idea 
of  the  one  spirit  of  Christ's  life,  received  and  modified 
into  a  thousand  forms  by  diiferent  characters  of  men, 
and  different  types  of  nations.  Christianity  is  like  the 
sunshine — not  a  given  form,  nor  imposing  a  uniform 
system  of  growth — it  is  a  force  of  spiritual  heat  and 
light,  which  expands,  developes,  and  irradiates ;  a  spiri- 
tual chemical  force  which  destroys  dead  things,  and 
quickens  half-living  things  in  the  character.  It  is 
assimilated,  but  according  to  the  original  arrangement 
of  the  spiritual  atoms  of  each  character,  so  that  it 
does  not  destroy,  but  enhances  individuality  ;  does  not 
injure,  but  intensifies  variety. 

There  has  scarcely  ever  lived  a  single  Christian  man 
whose  Christianity  has  been  identical  in  form  with  that 
of  another,  though  tlje  species  may  have  been  the 
same.  There  is  certainly  no  Christian  nation  which 
has  produced  a  type  of  Christianity  uniform  with  that 
of  another.     Look  at  the  Apostolic  Church,  read  the 


The  Fihuss  of  Christianity  for  Mankifid,     1 9 

pistles  which  remain  to  us.  The  letters  of  S.  James, 
of  S.  Peter,  of  S.  Paul,  of  S.  John,  differ  as  the  oak 
differs  from  the  chestnut,  as  the  fir  differs  from  the 
ash-tree.  These  represent  in  various  forms  what  the 
sunshine  has  done  for  them  ;  the  epistles  represent,  in 
various  forms  of  Christian  thought,  what  the  spirit  of 
Christ  had  wrought  in  their  authors. 

I  venture  to  say  that  there  never  has  existed  a  set  of 
religious  books  which  go  manifestly  despised  outward 
consistency,  and  so  boldly  fell  back  upon  an  inner  unity 
of  spirit ;  which,  though  they  systema-tised  to  a  certain 
extent,  showed  more  plainly,  taken  together,  that  there 
^vas  no  system  in  the  source  from  whence  they  drew 
their  inspiration;  which  dared  more  audaciously  to 
vary  their  modes  of  expressing  spiritual  truths,  rel^'ing 
on,*and  because  of,  their  appeal  to  the  primary  instincts 
of  mankind. 

This  was  one  of  the  elements  which  we  saw  last 
Sunday  lay  at  the  root  of  the  success  of  Christianity. 
It  left  individual  and  national  development  free,  and 
it  appealed  to  a  common  humanity.  And,  having  no 
system,  it  promoted  liberty  of  growth  in  Mankind,  and 
when  that  growth  had  passed  a  certain  stage,  and  the 
character  of  the  time  changed,  it  changed  its  form  in 
turn  to  suit  the  new  ideas  of  men.  But  beneath  all 
these  varied  representations  there  will  be  always  a 
few  clear  principles,  and  a  spirit  which  will  remain 
the  same.  Whether  Christianity  exist  as  Calvinist  or 
Ritualist,  Roman  Catholic  or  Lutheran,  Wesley  an  or 
Unitarian,  all  these  forms  will  have  taken  their  life  and 
built  up  their  being  from  the  sunlight  of  Chi'ist. 


20     The  Fihiess  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

It  will  be  easily  seen  from  this,  how  much  I  despise 
the  struggle  for  uniformity,  and  how  much  I  dread  it 
as  directly  anti-Christian.  Unity  of  spirit  we  should 
endeavour  to  seek  for,  and  keep  in  the  bond  of  peace  ; 
but  uniformity !  Imagine  a  world  in  which  all  the 
trees  were  pines. 

The  effort  to  establish  uniformity  is  not  only  the 
note  of  an  uncultivated  spirit — it  is  especially  the 
mark  of  one  who  has  not  studied  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  nor  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles.  And  Chris- 
tianity has  been  especially  unfortunate  in  the  way  in 
which  for  many  ages  its  followers,  foolishly  dismayed 
by  the  cry  of  inconsistency,  have  made  it  almost  a  point 
to  struggle  against  Christ's  altogether  divine  con- 
ception of  a  spiritual  universe  of  worshippers  at  one  in 
the  midst  of  a  boundless  variety.  Yet,  such  is  the  vi- 
tality of  Christianity,  that  it  has  resisted  the  very  efforts 
of  its  own  children  to  nullify  its  qualities,  and  remains 
as  before,  a  spirit  of  light  and  a  spirit  of  life,  capable 
of  endless  expansion,  ready  to  alter  its  form  in  order  to 
co-operate  with  every  human  movement,  aud  working 
out  in  every  human  soul  who  receives  it  some  subtile 
phase  of  its  beauty,  some  delicate  shade  of  its  tender- 
ness, some  new  manifestation  of  its  graces. 

We  have  spoken  so  far  of  the  religion  of  Christ  in 
contact  with  human  character;  let  us  look  at  it  in 
contact  with  some  great  human  interests. 

Take  politics.  Other  religions  have  laid  down  poli- 
tical systems,  and  bound  themselves  to  ideas  of  caste, 
to  imperialism,  or  to  socialism.  The  latest  religion 
has  woven  into  its  body  a  most  cumbrous  arrangement 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind,    2 1 

of  maukind  and  the  nations  of  mankind.  Conse- 
quently, these  religions  being  tied  to  the  transient, 
perished  or  will  perish  with  the  political  systems  to 
which  they  are  bound. 

Christianity  never  made  this  mistake.  It  refused  to 
be  mixed  up  with  any  political  system,  or  to  bind  those 
who  followed  it  down  to  any  form  of  political  union,  as  it 
had  refused  to  bind  them  down  to  any  particular  form  of 
religious  union.  Leaving  itself  perfectly  free,  it  could 
therefore  enter  as  a  spirit  of  good  into  any  form  of 
government.  And  it  did  enter  into  all  forms — patri- 
archal, military,  feudal,  monarchical,  imperial,  demo- 
cratic— as  a  spirit  which  modified  the  evils  of  each, 
and  developed  their  good.  It  is  objected  to  Chris- 
tianity that  it  does  not  touch  on  great  political  ques- 
tions, such  as  the  limits  of  obedience  to  a  ruler,  or  the 
duties  of  the  State  to  the  citizens,  and  therefore  that 
it  is  not  a  religion  for  men ;  but  it  does  not  touch 
directly  on  these  questions  because  its  object  was  to 
penetrate  them  all  as  an  insensible  influence.  Had  it 
declared  itself  imperialist  or  democi'utic,  it  would  have 
been  excluded  from  the  one  or  from  the  other.  But, 
entering  into  the  hearts  of  men  as  a  spirit  of  love,  of 
aspiration  after  perfection,  of  justice  and  forgiveness, 
it  crept  from  man  to  man,  till  in  every  nation  there 
existed  a  body  of  men  who  had  absorbed  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  who  slowly  brought  about  political  regenera- 
tion through  spiritual  regeneration. 

But  because  it  has  prevailed  in  countries  where 
feudal  systems  and  the  tyrannies  of  caste  have  ruled, 
it  has  been  accused  of  having  been  on  the  side  of 


2  2     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

oppressors  of  the  race.  The  objection  is  plausible,  but 
it  is  "aiifair.  Some  distinction  is  surely  to  be  made 
between  a  Church  made  into  a  political  organ  and 
Christianity  itself.  When  the  Church,  as  in  France 
before  the  Revolution,  became  a  mere  adjunct  to  the 
throne  and  threw  in  its  lot  with  tyrants,  it  forswore 
its  Christianity.  When  it  established  itself  at  Rome 
as  a  tyranny  over  men's  souls,  it  turned  upon  its 
Foundei'  and  re-crucified  Him.  Moreover,  if  Chris- 
tianity has  been  accused  as  the  handmaid  of  oppres- 
sion, it  is  at  least  just  to  look  on  the  other  side  and 
see  if  it  has  not  been  the  inspirer  of  the  noblest 
revolutions.  All  its  fundamental  ideas — the  Father- 
hood of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  all  men  in  Christ,  the 
equality  of  all  men  before  God,  the  individual  respon- 
sibility of  every  human  soul,  the  surrender  of  all 
things  for  others,  the  one  necessity  of  salvation  for 
all  alike,  emperor  and  peasant — are  spiritual  ideas 
which  bear  an  easy  translation  into  political  ideas,  and 
which,  gathering  strength,  have  proved  the  ruin  of 
many  tyrannies.  If  Christianity  has  any  close  relation 
with  a  distinct  political  idea,  it  is  with  the  idea  of  a 
high  democracy;  and  if,  as  some  say,  the  world  is 
irresistibly  tending  to  democracy,  there  is  nothing  in 
Christianity  to  prevent  its  falling  in  with  this  political 
tendency.  I  see  no  limit  to  its  expansion,  should  that 
take  place ;  on  the  contrary,  I  think  that  it  will  take 
in  democracy  a  further  and  a  more  brilliant,  a  freer 
and  more  devotional  development  than  ever  it  has  yet 
done.  The  atmosphere  will  be  more  congenial  to  it. 
Again,  take  art.  Greek  religion  lent  itself  to  sculpture. 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.    2  ; 

b\it  after  a  time  its  ideas  were  exhausted.  It  afforded 
no  universal  range  of  subjects.  Some  way  or  another, 
human  as  it  was,  it  was  not  human  enough  to  enable 
it  to  last.     It  was  of  Greece,  it  was  not  of  mankind. 

The  religion  of  Mohammed  shut  out  all  painting 
and  sculpture  of  living  forms  from  its  sacred  archi- 
tecture. But  the  Romanesque  and  Gothic  builders,  with 
a  strange  instinct  that  in  Christianity  there  was  no- 
thing irreligious,  and  that  every  act  of  human  life,  if 
done  naturally,  or  for  just  ends,  even  if  it  were  such  an 
act  as  war,  was  a  religious  act,  and  that  all  the  world, 
animate  and  inanimate,  was  holy  to  the  Lord  in  Christ, 
filled  porch  and  arcade  and  string-course  with  sculpture 
of  all  things  in  earth  and  heaven,  symbolised  the  re- 
volving year,  made  parables  of  beauty  and  of  terror, 
and  threw  into  breathing  stone  the  hopes,  the  passions, 
the  fears,  and  the  faith  of  Christian  men. 

This  was  but  one  field  of  the  immense  space  which 
Christianity  opened  to  religious  art.  No  limitations 
were  placed  upon  it  by  the  religion ;  it  was  left  to 
each  nation,  according  to  its  genius,  to  develope  it  in  its 
own  way. 

It  was  the  same  with  poetry  as  with  architecture ; 
it  lost  nothing  by  the  addition  of  the  Christian  element ; 
it  gained,  on  the  contrary,  a  great  subject.  And  that 
subject,  in  its  infinite  humanity,  in  the  way  it  has  of 
making  those  who  grasp  it  largely  interested  iu  all 
things,  in  the  majesty  which  belongs  to  it,  does  not 
prevent  men  from  rising  into  the  grand  style — that 
style  which  makes  a  man  feel  himself  divine  as  he 
reads.     On  the  contrary,  of  the  three  poets  who  since 


24     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Manki7td, 

Christ  have  possessed  this  style  in  perfection,  two 
employed  all  their  power  on  subjects  which  belonged 
to  Christian  thought.  The  majesty  of  the  subject 
reacted  on  their  power  of  expression.  They  proved 
at  least  that  Christianity  does  not  exclude,  but  is  ex- 
pansive enough  to  include,  the  art  of  poetry.  More- 
over, a  religion  which  appeals  to  human  feeling,  which 
is  nothing  apart  from  Man,  whose  strongest  impulse  is 
the  ^  enthusiasm  of  humanity,'  can  never  be  apart  from 
an  art  like  that  of  poetry  which  withers,  corrupts,  and 
dies  when  it  is  severed  from  the  interests  of  men.  One 
may  even  go  further.  Christianity  has  to  do  with  the 
insoluble,  with  visions  which  love  alone  can  realise, 
with  questions  to  which  the  understanding  gives  no 
reply,  with  feelings  which  cannot  be  defined,  only  ap- 
proached, in  words.  It  is  the  very  realm  in  which  half 
of  the  poetry  of  the  world  has  been  written. 

There  is  nothing  then  to  prevent  Christianity,  existing 
in  harmonious  relation  with  all  true  poetry  from  age 
to  age  of  the  world.  In  itself,  it  gives  a  grand  subject 
to  poetry,  and  both  it  and  poetry  have  similar  elements ; 
their  common  appeal  to,  and  their  death  apart  from, 
human  interests  and  feelings ;  their  common  life  in  a 
region  above  the  understanding. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  arts  of  music  and  painting ; 
let  us  pass  on  to  science.  Supposing  Christianity  had 
committed  itself  to  any  scientific  statements  or  to  any 
scientific  method,  it  could  never  have  been  fitted  to  ex- 
pand with  the  expansion  of  knowledge,  to  be  a  religion 
for  a  race  which  is  continually  advancing  in  scientific 
knowledge.  If  it  had  bound  itself  up  with  the  knowledge 


The  Fitness  of  Christianily  for  Mankind,    2 5 

of  its  time,  it  would  naturally  bo  subject  now  to 
repeated  and  ruinous  blows.  If  it  had  anticipated  the 
final  discoveries  of  science  and  revealed  them,  nobody 
would  have  believed  it  then,  and  nobody  would  probably 
believe  it  now.  Christianity  committed  itself  to  nothing. 
*  Yours  is  not  my  province,'  it  said  to  science.  *  Do 
your  best  in  your  own  sphere  with  a  single  eye  to  truth. 
I  will  do  my  best  in  mine.  Let  us  not  throw  barriers 
in  each  other's  way.  The  less  we  obstruct  each  other, 
the  more  chance  there  is  of  our  finding  in  the  end 
union  in  the  main  ideas  which  regulate  both  our  worlds 
in  the  mind  of  God.' 

Foolish  men  have  mixed  it  up  with  science  and  en- 
deavoured to  bind  each  down  upon  the  bed  of  the  other, 
to  make  science  Christian  and  Christianity  scientific, 
but  the  result  has  always  been  a  just  rebellion  on  both 
sides.  The  worst  evil  has  been  the  unhallowed  and  for  ?ed 
alliance  of  the  doctrine  of  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the 
Bible,  or  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  to  Chris- 
tianity. The  moment  science  was  truly  bom,  war  to 
the  death  arose  against  a  form  of  Christianity  which 
violated  the  original  neutrality  of  Christianity  towards 
the  pure  intellect  and  its  pursuit  of  its  own  truths.  But 
get  rid  of  this  alliance,  and  how  is  Christianity  in  oppo- 
sition to  science?  what  is  to  prevent  its  being  a  religion 
fit  for  man  in  that  future  when  the  youngest  child  will 
know  more  than  the  philosopher  of  to-day  ?  It  is  no 
more  in  actual  opposition  to  science  than  poetry  is. 

^e  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will ; 

I   suppose  no  scientific  man  would  run  a  tilt  at  that. 


26     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

Its  thouglit,  its  feeling,  the  impression  it  is  intended  to 
convey,  are  all  out  of  the  sphere  of  science.  Neverthe- 
less, the  natural  philosopher  recognises  that  it  appeals 
to  his  imagination.  He  receives  pleasure  from  it ;  he 
accepts  it  as  true  in  its  own  sphere. 
.  But  if  he  were  told  that  the  writer  claimed  in- 
fallibility for  his  expression,  said  that  it  expressed 
not  only  a  certain  touch  of  human  feeling  about  the 
river,  but  also  the  very  physical  truth  about  the  move- 
ment of  the  river,  he  would  naturally  be  indignant. 
'  You  have  left  your  own  ground,'  he  would  say  to  the 
poet, '  where  you  were  supreme,  and  you  have  come  into 
mine,  where,  by  the  very  hypothesis  of  your  art,  you  are 
a  stranger.  You  claim  my  obedience,  here,  in  my  own 
kingdom,  the  absolute  surrender  of  my  reason  in  a  realm 
where  reason  is  the  rightful  lord.  You  may  be  a  poet, 
but  you  are  denying  the  first  principles  of  your  art.' 

Precisely  the  same  might  be  said  to  those  who  are 
ill-informed  enough  to  connect  the  spirit  and  life  of 
Christianity  with  efforts  to  suppress  physical  science 
or  historical  criticism  as  tending  to  infidelity,  or  as 
weakening  Christian  truth.  It  might  be  said  to  them 
by  a  wise  scholar :  '  You  may  be  Christians,  but  you 
are  doing  aU  the  harm  you  can  to  Christianity.  You 
are  endeavouring  to  bind  an  elastic  and  expanding 
spirit  into  a  rigid  mould  in  which  it  will  be  suffocated. 
You  are  fettering  your  living  truth  to  physical  and 
historical  theories  which  have  been  proved  to  be  false 
and  dead,  and  your  Christianity  will  suffer  as  the 
living  man  suffered  when  the  cruel  king  bound  him 
to  the  corpse.     Your  special  form  of  Christianity  will 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.    2  7 

grow,  corrupt,  and  die,  for  it  attacks  truth.'  But  if  some 
Christian  people  have  gone  out  of  their  sphere,  there 
are  not  wanting  pliilosophers  to  do  the  same.  *  I  know 
nothing  of  God  and  immortality,'  says  science,  and  with 
an  air  as  if  that  settled  the  question.  '  I  should  think 
you  did  not,'  Christianity  would  gravely  answer ;  '  no 
one  ever  imagined  that  you  could,  but  I  do ;  I  do  know 
a  great  deal  about  those  wonderful  realities,  and  I  have 
given  my  knowledge  of  them  to  millions  of  the  human 
race  who  have  received  it,  proved  it  through  toil  and 
pain,  and  found  it  powerful  to  give  life  in  the  hour  of 
death.'  '  Proved  it,'  answers  science,  *  not  in  my  way, 
the  only  way  worth  having,  the  way  which  makes  a 
thing  clear  to  the  understanding.'  But  there  are 
hundreds  of  things  which  are  not  and  cannot  be  sub- 
mitted to  such  a  proof.  We  cannot  subject  the  action 
of  any  of  the  passions  to  the  explanations  of  the  under- 
standing. By  reasoning  alone,  we  cannot  say  what  an 
envious,  jealous,  self-sacrificing,  or  joyful  man  may  do 
next,  nor  explain  his  previous  actions.  One  might  far 
more  easily  predict  the  actions  of  a  madman. 

We  cannot  give  any  reason  for  love  at  fii'st  sight,  or, 
what  is  less  rare  but  as  real,  friendship  at  first  sight. 
We  cannot  divide  into  compartments  the  heart  and  soul 
of  any  one  person  in  the  world,  saying,  This  is  the 
boundary  of  that  feeling ;  so  far  this  quality  will  carry 
the  man  in  life.  For  the  understanding  is  but  a 
secondary  power  in  man.  It  can  multiply  distinctions- 
It  cannot  see  the  springs  of  life  where  the  things  are 
bom  about  which  it  makes  distinctions. 

Night's  candles  are  burnt  out,  and  jocund  day 
Stands  tiptoe  o%  the  misty  mountain-tops. 


28     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  fo7'  Mankind. 

What  tells  us  that  is  poetry?  The  voice  of  the  un- 
derstanding? 'Night's  candles  are  burnt  out/  it  says 
— 'it  is  a  ridiculous  statement  of  the  fact  that  the 
stars  have  ceased  to  shine.  Day  never  stands  tiptoe 
on  the  misty  mountain-tops.  Is  that  poetry?  It  is 
nonsense.'  But  the  understanding  rarely  acts  alone 
in  this  way  ;  a  higher  power  in  man  proves  to  him,  he 
cannot  tell  how,  that  the  lines  are  magnificent  poetry — 
nay,  that  the  poetry  is  in  the  very  passages  which  the 
understanding  despises. 

Let  each  keep  to  their  own  spheres  and  do  their  work 
therein.  Christianity  has  no  weapons  in  her  original 
armoury  which  can  be  wielded  against  science,  and 
science  cannot  attack  spiritual  truths  with  purely  in- 
tellectual weapons.  No  one  asks  for  a  spiritual  proof 
that  the  earth  goes  round  the  sun  ;  it  is  equally  absurd 
to  ask  for  a  purely  intellectual  proof  of  the  existence 
of  an  all-loving  Father.  And  it  would  be  wiser  if  science 
kept  her  hands  oif  Christianity.  Mankind  will  bear 
a  great  deal,  but  it  will  not  long  bear  the  denial  of 
a  God  of  love,  the  attempt  to  thieve  away  the  hope 
of  being  perfect  and  our  divine  faith  in  immortality. 
These  things  are  more  precious  than  all  physical  dis- 
coveries. The  efforts  made  to  rob  us  of  them,  when 
they  are  made,  and  they  are  but  rarely  made,  are 
not  to  be  patiently  endured.  They  are  far  less  tole- 
rable than  the  ill-advised  attempts  of  Christian  men  to 
dominate  over  science.  These  latter  efforts  are  absurd, 
but  the  former  are  degrading  to  human  nature. 

It  really  does  not  make  much  matter  to  the  race  in 
general,  whether  the  whole  science  of  geology  were 


The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind,    29 

proved  to-morrow  to  liave  been  proceeding  on  a  wrong 
bjisis,  or  whether  the  present  theory  of  force  be  true  or 
not ;  but  it  would  make  the  most  serious  matter  to 
mankind,  if  they  knew  for  certain  to-morrow  that  there 
was  npGod  of  justice  and  love,  or  that  immortality  was 
a  fond  invention.  The  amount  of  suppressed  and 
latent  belief  in  these  truths,  which  we  should  then 
discover  in  men  who  now  deny  them,  would  be  perhaps 
the  strangest  thing  we  should  observe  ;  but  it  hath  not 
entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  imagine  the  awfulness 
of  the  revolution  which,  following  on  this  denial,  would 
penetrate  into  every  corner  of  human  nature  and  human 
life. 

Both  science  and  Christianity  have  vital  and  precious 
truths  of  their  own  to  give  to  men,  and  they  can 
develope  together  without  interfering  with  each  other. 
Should  science  increase  its  present  knowledge  tenfold, 
there  is  nothing  it  can  discover  which  will  enable  it 
to  close  up  that  region  in  man  where  the  spirit  com- 
munes in  prayer  and  praise  with  its  Father,  where 
the  longing  for  rest  is  content  in  the  peace  of  for- 
giveness, where  the  desire  of  being  perfect  in  unselfish- 
ness is  satisfied  by  union  with  the  activity  of  the 
unselfish  God,  where  sorrow  feels  its  burden  lightened 
by  divine  sympathy,  where  strength  is  given  to  over- 
come evil — where,  as  decay  and  death  grow  upon  the 
outward  frame,  the  inner  spirit  begins  to  put  forth  its 
wings  and  to  realise  more  nearly  the  eternal  summer  of 
His  presence,  in  whom  there  is  fulness  of  life  in  fulness 
of  love.  No;  as  Christianity  can  expand  to  fit  into 
the  progress  of  politics,  and   to  adapt   itself   to  the 


30     The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind. 

demands  of  art,  so  it  can  also  throw  away,  without 
losing  one  feature  of  its  original  form,  rather  by- 
returning  to  its  purer  type,  all  the  elements  opposed  to 
the  advance  of  science  which  men  have  added  to  its 
first  simplicity. 

It  will  be  pleasant,  if  what  I  have  said  be  true,  for 
all  of  us  to  meet  five  hundred  years  hence,  and,  inter- 
changing our  tidings  of  the  earth,  to  find  that  the 
thoughts  and  hopes  of  this  sermon,  in  which  many  of 
you  must  sympathise,  have  not  been  proved  untrue. 


TJie  Higher  Judaistn  and  Christianity,      31 


TKE  niGHEH  JUDAISM  AND  CURISTIANITI'. 

*  Think  not  that  I  am  come  to  destroy  the  law,  or  the  prophets :  I 
mil  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fuliil.* — Matt.  v.  17. 

And  the  common  people  heard  him  gladly.* — ^Mark  xii.  87. 

One  of  tlie  most  interesting  positions  in  whicli  a 
Christian  teacher  can  find  himself  is  when,  under  the 
pressure  of  new  discoveries  in  science  or  in  history,  he 
is  forced  to  change  his  front  and  take  up  new  ground 
for  either  attack  or  defence  of  his  faith.  It  has  often 
happened  that  after  the  army  of  Christianity  has 
defended  for  many  years^  its  cause  from  a  particular 
place  of  vantage,  that  place  becomes  untenable.  It  is 
the  business  then  of  the  ai-my  to  change  that  position, 
and  it  almost  invariably  changes  it  under  a  cry  from  the 
enemy  that  the  Christian  cause  is  overthrown.  The 
weaker  members  of  the  host  itself,  who  have  grown 
so  fond  of  the  position  as  to  identify  the  cause 
with  the  ground  they  held,  add  to  the  noise  of  the 
enemy  their  own  feeble  wail  that  Christianity  itself  is 
in  danger  of  destruction.  Both  the  cry  and  the  wail  are 
out  of  place.  That  the  Christian  army  should  alter  its 
front  and  take  up  new  ground  is  a  known  necessity  of  the 
contest.  It  has  done  so  often  in  the  course  of  history,  and 
we  must  expect  that  it  will  have  to  do  so  again.  And  the 


32       The  Higher  yudaisni  and  Christianity, 

fact  is  that  in  all  these  changes  it  has  never  lost  ground 
which  it  has  not  more  than  'regained.  It  has  left 
behind  several  positions  which  were  useful  at  their  time, 
and  in  these  some  stragglers  are  still  fond  of  loitering ; 
it  is  even  true  that  some  large  portions  of  the  army  have 
gone  back  to  hold  abandoned  positions  in  order  to  keep 
up  their  communications  with  the  past,  but  the  van- 
guard is  still  in  advance,  ready  to  meet  any  difficulties 
introduced  into  the  contest  by  the  discoveries  of  science 
or  the  advance  of  criticism .  It  does  not  deny  the  truth 
of  proved  discoveries,  nor  the  value  of  criticism,  it 
only  opposes  the  inferences  drawn  from  them  by  persons 
afflicted  with  fanatic  infidelity.  Their  attack  is  made 
upon  Christianity  as  seen  entrenched  in  the  old  position. 
Our  answer  is  that  we  have  abandoned  that  position, 
that  it  was  only  temporary,  and  that  its  abandonment 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  abandonment  of  the  cause. 
'  We  have,'  we  say, '  absorbed- what  is  proved  true  in  your 
discoveries.  And  now  attack  us  here  if  you  will ;  but 
do  not  go  on  storming  into  an  empty  camp  and  then 
saying  that  you  'have  conquered  the  Christian  host.  It 
is  only  a  few  camp-followers  whom  you  are  slaying ;  the 
veteran  army  is  untouched.' 

At  this  moment,  however,  the  mass  of  the  army  is 
making  the  transition.  It  has  not  yet  understood  where 
it  is  going  to,  nor  the  capabilities  of  the  position  it 
will  occupy.  !N'aturally  it  is  harassed  in  its  march,  and 
though  it  does  not  lose  its  faith  and  courage,  it  does 
suffer  a  little  from  confusion.  Some,  on  the  assumption 
that  it  still  holds  verbal  inspiration,  prove  that  the 
whole  of  the  Bible  is  unworthv  of  credit  as  a  revelation. 


The  Higher  Judaism  and  Christianity.      33 

and  it  is  rather  diflficult  to  convince  these  people  that 
verbal  inspiration  is  not  to  be  forced  on  us  now,  be- 
cause some  may  have  held  it  once.     And  when,  with 
the  vanguard,  we  deny  that  inspiration  brings  infalli- 
bility to  any  parts  of  the  Bible  which  belong  to  the 
domain  of   science  or  historical  criticism,  we  cut  the 
^a*ound  from  under  the  feet  of  our  opponents  by  deny- 
ing absolutely  their  major  premiss.      We  have  changed 
our  front.    They  must  seek  another  field  of  battle,  a  new 
form  of  the  argument,  if  they  can  find  it.     Meanwhile, 
as  we  are  making  this  transition,  a  number  of  minor 
attacks  are  made  on  us — masked  attacks,  some  of  which 
we    know  will   answer  themselves,  and   need  only  be 
allowed  to  exhaust  themselves ;  others,  however,  being 
in  themselves  interesting,  and  opening  out  attractive 
questions,  are  well  worth  replying  to,  especially  when 
they  lead  us  to  dwell  on  certain  distinctive  elements 
iji  Christianity.     One  of  these  we  shall  speak  of  to-day. 
The  more  active  investigation  of  the  ancient  religions 
brought  to  light  many  curious  likenesses  of  Christianity. 
Not  only  many  of  its  typical  thoughts,  but  some  of  the 
very  phrases  used  by  Christ  and  his  followers  were  dis- 
covered in  the  writings  of  Buddhists,  Brahmans,  Sikh 
doctors,  Greeks,  Eomans,  and  Jews,  who  had  lived  before 
his  time.    It  was  at  once  declared  that  the  revelation  in 
the  Gospels  was  not  an  original  revelation,  that  Christ 
Himself  was  no  more  than  other  great  teachers  had 
been,  that  what  He  said  had  been  said  before  Hkn.     At 
the  present  time  this  attack  has   been  more  plainly 
made  in  public  and  social  discussion  by  a  comparison  of 
the  teaching  of  the  Talmud  with  the  teaching  of  Christ, 


34      The  Higher  Jtidaisin  a7id  Christianity, 

and  tlie  renewed  inference  by  many  persons  wliom  one 
meets,  that  the  latter  was  not  original. 

In  replying  to  that  I  put  aside  the  question  of  dates, 
though  no  critical  proof  has  been  offered  that  the  say- 
ings in  question  which  are  similar  in  the  Talmud  and 
Christianity  were  actually  in  existence  before  Christ. 

But  I  am  wHling  to  surrender  this  point,  and  to  meet 
the  whole  matter  on  grounds  which  will  include  an 
answer  to  the  other  member  of  the  question, — that  is, 
the  likeness  of  Christ's  words,  not  only  to  the  words  of 
the  Jewish,  but  also  of  Hindoo,  Greek,  and  Buddhist, 
doctors.  The  Talmudical  question  by  itself  is  of  small 
importance.  It  runs  up  into  a  larger  question ;  it  is 
part  of  a  whole,  and  to  that  whole  we  reply. 

First.  We  need  not  be  at  all  astonished  at  this 
similarity;  on  the  contrary,  we  ought  to  be  surprised 
if  it  did  not  exist. 

I  may  approach  what  I  mean  by  an  analogy.  There 
are  certain  myths  common  to  almost  all  nations,  not 
only  to  the  Aryan,  Semitic,  or  Turanian  separately, 
but  to  all  of  them  alike.  Now  these  myths  stand  on 
a  somewhat  different  ground  from  those  which  arise 
out  of  the  transference  of  poetic  language  used  with 
regard  to  physical  phenomena  into  a  mythology  of 
gods  and  heroes,  for  myths  of  this  class  vary  with 
the  various  races.  They  occupy  also  a  different  ground 
from  those  which  arise  out  of  modifications  of  human 
developjnent  by  race  or  climate,  or  any  external  cause. 
For  they  arise  directly  out  of  those  consistent  and 
universal  properties  of  human  nature  which  are  as 
unchanged  in  all  races  as  the  plan  of  the  vertebral 
column -is  in  all  the  vertebrata.     I  believe  myself  that 


Tlu  Higher  yudaisvi  and  Christianity,      35 

they  must  develope  out  of  human  nature ;  that,  given 
human  nature,  certain  stories  are  sure  to  emerge,  so  that 
if  a  new  race  of  human  beings  were  to  arise  in  some 
unreached  corner  of  the  world,  and  be  entirely  secluded 
for  centuries  from  other  men,  we  should  find,  on  its  dis- 
covery, these  constant  stories  existing  in  that  country. 

Now  apply  this  analogy  to  the  question  before  us. 
There  are  certain  fundamental  axioms  of  religion,  which, 
supposing  the  religious  impulse  to  exist  in  human 
nature,  must  in  the  course  of  centuries  work  their  way 
through  all  en'or  to  the  surface.  They  lie  hid  in  the 
very  essence  of  human  nature.  Existing  during  the 
era  of  savagery,  they  are  certain,  after  it  has  past,  to 
develope  themselves  as  guiding  principles  of  feeling  and 
notion.  The  mass  of  the  common  people  will  be  in- 
fluenced by  them  unconsciously,  but  those  men  who 
rise  above  the  mass  in  thought,  and  seclude  themselves 
for  contemplation,  will  finally  come  to  see  them  clearly, 
and  having  seen  them  will  express  them.  It  is  almost 
certain,  by  the  hypothesis,  that  they  will  be  stated  in 
all  nations  by  such  men  in  words  which  bear  the  closest 
similarity.  For  instance,  '  do  unto  others  as  ye  would 
they  should  do  unto  you '  is  a  spiritual  saying  which 
appears  in  many  other  religious  books  than  the  Talmud, 
and  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the  thought  will  naturally 
secure  its  expression  in  almost  identical  phraseology. 
In  fact,  how  else  can  we  express  it  ? 

It  is,  therefore,  no  matter  of  astonishment  to  me,  but 
the  contrary,  when  I  find  that  those  sayings  of  Christ 
v/hich  express  fundamental  ethical  truths  of  human 
nature  have    been   expressed    before   and    in   similar 


36      The  Higher  Judaism  and  Christianity. 

phraseology.  If  He  be,  as  we  believe,  i)erfect  Humanity, 
it  would  be  passing  strange  if  He  did  not  state  the 
ancient  truths  of  humanity — and  how  else  could  He  state 
them  than  in  their  natural,  easy,  unsensational  form? 
They  were  axioms,  they  had  to  be  axiomatically  stated. 

We  have  now  some  grounds  on  which  to  frame  our 
answer  to  the  objection  that  Christ  was  not  original. 
It  is  said,  and  as  if  it  condemned  his  revelation :  '  See, 
Christ  says  nothing  new.' 

But  ought  we  to  expect  the  Saviour  to  be  original  in 
these  points  ?  Did  He  claim  entire  originality  by  itself, 
as  any  mark  of  his  mission  ?  Was  there  no  light  before 
his  advent,  no  law  written  in  men's  hearts  ?  And  when 
He  arrived  on  earth,  was  He,  in  a  vain  striving  after 
originality,  to  neglect  and  ignore  the  light  and  the  law 
which  his  Father  had  given  to  the  nations  before  He 
came.  •  On  the  contrary,  He  accepted  these  things  as 
Divine,  embodied  them  in  his  teaching,  and  practically 
said  to  men.  These  things  which  My  Father's  Spirit 
taught  you  in  the  past,  I  redeclare  in  the  present,  with 
His  authority. 

The  fact  is,  He  chose  the  old  expressions  by  pre- 
ference, when  He  could.  He  did  not  wish  to  be  original 
in  these  points.  For  He  knew  that  his  Father  had 
been  working  hitherto. 

Therefore,  I  repeat,  one  of  the  deepest  parts  of  his  work 
was  to  resume  in  Himself  all  the  past  truth,  to  realise  in 
Himself  all  the  past  ideals.  He  came  to  embody  the  long- 
ings of  all  mankind,  to  gather  into  Himself  all  the  scat- 
tered liorhts  of  God  which  had  shined  before  Him  in 
men's  souls,  and  condense  them  into  a  perfect  star  of 
Truth. 


Tlu  Higher  Judaism  and  Christianity.      37 

He  came  to  be  Man,  to  represent  in  Himself  Hindoo, 
Arabian,  Chinese,  Greek,  Roman,  Jew — all  nations  and 
tongues;  for  this  follows  directly  from  what  seems 
the  opposite,  but  is  the  converse  statement — that  in 
Christ  Jesus  there  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  barbarian, 
Scythian,  bond  or  free,  but  Ho  is  all  and  in  all.  And 
as,  one  after  another,  we  find  in  these  various  peoples 
Christ's  phrases  before  Christ,  we  rejoice — it  only  proves 
our  point — that  He  absorbed  all  the  floating  truths  of 
humanity,  passed  them  through  the  purifying  crucible 
of  his  soul,  cleansed  them  of  their  dross,  and  built 
them  up  with  others  which  He  revealed,  into  a  temple 
of  stainless  gold. 

Our  next  question  is : — In  what  points  did  Christ's 
teachiner  of  these  common  truths  differ  from  the  Jewish 
teaohing  of  them  ?  What  were  the  original  elements  in 
his  revelation  ? 

They  were  mainly  two.  First,  He  wove  these  truths 
up  with  a  human  Hfe ;  and  secondly.  He  made  them 
common  coin.  He  went  in  and  out  among  the  people, 
preaching  and  living  these  truths.  And  it  followed,  that 
He  caused  a  religious  revolution. 

But  the  revolutionary  nature  of  his  work  is  one  of 
the  objections  made  against  it.  It  is  said  that  his 
work  could  have  been  done  without  Him ;  that,  in  fact, 
the  main  truths  He  taught  were  slowly  filtering  into 
Jewish  society,  and  even  into  Gentile  society,  from  the 
great  reservoir  of  wisdom  among  the  sages  of  the  Jews, 
and  that  their  slow  dispersion  of  wisdom  was  unattended 
by  the  evils  of  a  revolution  and  subject  to  no  reaction. 
Whereas,  this  young  enthusiastic  genius — so  one  has 


38       The  Higher  ytcdaism  and  Chrisiianity, 

heard  tlie  Saviour  cliaracterised — brouglit  up  in  Galilee, 
"where  education  was  not  so  well  maintained  as  in  other 
parts  of  Palestine — broke  in  upon  the  quiet  progress  of 
truth,  and  hurried  it  forward  into  a  revolution  in  which 
much  excellent  truth,  being  given  too  soon,  was  after- 
wards lost  or  perverted.  And  lastly,  that  his  attacks 
on  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  as  recorded  in  the  Gospels 
are  proof  of  his  want  of  high  training,  and  even  of 
his  ignorance,  for  the  very  things  He  taught  were  being 
taught  by  the  best  among  those  whom  He  satirized  with 
such  intemperance. 

We  reply — reserving  the  whole  question  of  the  evil 
or  not  of  a  religious  revolution  at  this  time  for  another 
sermon — first,  that  history  does  not  confirm  the  theory 
that  the  high  teaching  of  the  Jewish  sages  was  having 
much  influence  upon  the  world.  We  are  told  that  they 
taught  a  large  tolerance  and  a  profound  charity.  Where 
is  the  proof  that  this  teaching  was  effective  ? 

Love  to  one's  neighbour  as  to  oneself — patience  under 
injury — a  universal  spirit  of  charity  even  among  those 
alone  who  held  a  common  faith — that  men  should  not 
seek  the  highest  place — that  the  true  master  was  as 
one  who  serveth — these  'things  do  not  seem  to  have  had 
the  smallest  influence  among  the  Jewish  parties  during 
the  last  fatal  war  with  Pome. 

And  as  to  the  influence  of  these  truths  upon  the 
Gentile  world,  how  many  proselytes  do  we  find,  and  how 
were  they  treated  by  the  boasted  tolerance  of  the  higher 
Judaism?  A  few  swallows  do  not  make  a  summer,  nor 
a  few  thousand  proselytes  a  regenerated  world.  Nor 
does  admission  into  the  outer  court  of  the  Temple  and 


TJie  Higher  Judaism  aiid  Chris (ianiiy.      39 

oxclusion  from  the  inner  say  much  for  the  perfect 
liberality  of  the  Doctors  of  the  Law. 

The  fact  is,  however  much  they  taught  these  truths, 
they  did  not  teach  them  so  as  to  make  them  influential. 

As  to  the  statement  that  there  were  Pharisees  to 
whom  Christ's  denunciations  did  not  apply,  no  one  ever 
doubted  it.  There  Jire  always  men  who  stand  apart 
from  the  violence  and  bigotry  of  their  time,  and  the 
more  bigoted  the  greater  number  are,  the  more  will 
these  isolate  themselves.  Of  such  a  type  Gamaliel  is 
an  instance.  But  such  men,  in  their  turn,  react  upon 
the  mtlss  and  make  its  narrowness  still  more  narrow,  if 
narrowness  be  the  tendency  of  the  time.  Moreover,  as 
we  shall  see,  the  isolated  culture  of  these  men  was, 
in  itself,  almost  worse  than  bigotry.  It  threw  the 
common  people  back  into  deeper  ignorance.  One  may 
imagine  the  scorn  with .  which  Gamaliel  would  have 
treated  men  like  the  common  Galileans  whom  Christ 
collected  round  Him,  from  the  ill-concealed  contempt 
with  which  he  treated  the  Sanhedrin  itself.  The  more 
one  considers  the  matter,  the  more  it  seems  that  Christ's 
reproofs  were  well  deserved.  It  may  well  be  that  there 
were  a  few  wise  and  good  men  who  did  not  share  either 
in  the  scorn  or  the  violence  of  the  period.  But  we  have 
no  right  to  imjnite  their  wisdom  to  all  the  hierarchy 
in  the  face  of  much  evidence  to  the  contrary.  Six  o.ak 
trees  in  a  wood  do  not  make  it  an  oak  wood. 

But  it  is  said  again  that  the  sayings  of  these  wise 
men  were  household  words  among  the  Jews,  and  that 
Christ  only  repeated  them.  Why  then,  I  ask,  did  they 
not  tell  upon  the  world  as  the  words  of  Christ  did? 


40      Tlie  Higher  Judaisin  and  Christianity. 

Why  did  they  not  inspire  men  to  go  forth  and  preach 
them  to  the  world  ?  Why  did  they  not  make  an  army 
of  martyrs  ?  Why  did  they  not  overrun  in  a  few  years 
the  Greek  and  Eoman  worlds?  Why  did  they  not 
destroy  Heathenism  ? 

The  answer  to  this  will  answer  also  our  previous 
question  :  in  what  points  did  Christ's  teaching  of  these 
common  truths  differ  from  the  Jewish  teaching  of 
them? 

The  Jewish  teaching  did  not  succeed  because  it  was 
not  embodied  in  a  person.  Christ's  teaching  differed  from 
that  of  the  Jewish  sages,  first,  in  this,  that  ft  was 
these  truths  made  real  in  a  life. 

The  teaching  in  the  Jewish  schools  was  of  a  noble 
religious  type.  But  independent  of  the  fact  that  the 
higher  truths  were  not  communicated  to  such  persons  as 
the  shepherds  of  Bethlehem,  the  teaching  was  teaching 
and  no  more.  No  one  dreamed  of  going  among  men 
and  living  the  truths  he  taught.  And  the  great  mass 
of  the  people  do  not  realise  things  by  description.  They 
must  see  in  order  to  know.  A  lecturer  gives  a  clear 
and  accurate  account  of  the  sea  to  a  class  of  inland 
persons  not  gifted  with  much  imagination,  and  they 
now  possess  a  mild  interest  in  the  information,  but 
none  in  the  sea  itself.  On  the  whole,  they  do  not  care  to 
pursue  the  subject  further.  But  suppose  that  the  lecturer 
could  suddenly  transport  his  pupils  to  the  Atlantic,  and 
say,  '  Look  there  ;  that  is  the  ocean.'  They  would  not 
know  as  much  about  it  as  if  they  had  listened  for  hours 
to  his  lectures,  but  they  would  have  what  they  had  not 
before — a  vivid  interest  in  it ;  they  are  inspired  to  study 


The  HigJur  Judaism  and  Christianity,      4 1 

it  for  themselves,  and  in  the  end,  because  they  love  it, 
and  are  thrilled  by  its  power  and  beauty,  they  learn  to 
know  it  better  than  they  could  by  any  elaborate  descrip- 
tion. 

So  here,  truths  were  given  by  the  Jewish  sages  to  the 
people  in  the  schools,  analysed,  reduced  to  proverbial 
forms,  and  they  had  no  universal  effect ;  they  produced 
no  vital  interest. 

At  last  one  comes  who  says,  I  am  the  Truth  and 
the  Life.  Look  here— see  my  works,  behold  my  life, 
■what  I  say,  and  do,  and  live;  that  is  the  mind  and 
the  character  of  God.  It  is  easy  to  put  that  to  the 
test ;  the  spectators  are  interested  ;  they  do  not  under- 
stand the  theoiy  of  truth  so  welL  at  first,  but  they  are 
thrilled,  inspired,  impelled.  They  cannot  rest  till  they 
have  seen  all  they  can;  they  comprehend  what  they 
see;  they  return  again  and  again  to  the  hurajln  reall na- 
tion of  the  truth. 

This  was  the  manner  of  Christ's  teaching,  and  the 
influence  of  it  crept  into  the  study  of  men's  imagination. 

Again,  it  is  hard  to  love  merely  ideal  truth.  Unless 
truth  is  connected  with  a  person  whom  one  can  love,  it 
does  not  get  afloat,  it  lies  stranded  on  the  beach. 
Preach  such  a  truth  as  '  Love  your  neighbour  as  your- 
self,' and  it  has  but  little  attractiveness  till  you  have 
connected  it  with  the  life  of  some  one  who  has  fulfilled 
it.  But  then  men's  hearts  are  stirred,  they  love  the 
man  and  necessarily  the  truth  which  made  the  man. 
Then  love  gives  it  vogue — a  fire  bums  in  our  hearts ; 
we  must  speak  or  die ;  we  speak,  and  the  fire  is  commu- 
nicated ;  it  runs  from  soul  to  soul,  spreading,  kindling 


42       The  Higher  Judaism  and  Christianity. 

as  it  goes.  We  want  truth  embodied  in  a  person  wliom 
we  can  love. 

It  was  because  tliis  was  done  by  Christ  that  Chris- 
tianity succeeded  where  Jewish  wisdom  failed.  A  great 
love  to  a  man  arose,  mingled  with  a  profound  venera- 
tion for  his  character.  Both  these,  love  and  reverence, 
were  irresistible.  Men's  hearts  were  drawn  to  Him 
as  the  seas  are  to  the  moon.  He  had  laid  down  his 
life  for  them ;  they  would  die  for  Him.  He  had  borne 
witness  to  the  truth  in  death ;  they  would  die  for  his 
truth.  He  had  lived  among  them  a  perfect  life,  and 
what  He  taught  was  guaranteed  and  glorified  by  it. 
It  was  not  so  much  truths  or  a  system  of  truths  which 
they  saw.  It  was  Christ  as  the  incarnate  Truth.  A 
central  point  was  given  to  which  all  the  rays  of  truth 
could  be  traced,  at  which  their  inner  harmon}'-  was  seen ; 
and  at  onfce  the  teaching  which  had  this  human  cctre 
took  fire,  force,  movement,  expansion,  and  radiated  over 
the  world. 

This  leads  me  to  the  second  and  the  last  reason  I 
shall  give  for  the  success  of  Christianity  as  contrasted 
with  the  failure  of  the  Jewish  sages.  It  was  preached 
to  the  common  people. 

I  have  said  that  truths  require  to  be  lived — nay, 
more,  to  be  died  for — to  give  them  vogue.  But  that 
they  should  be  lived  and  died  for,  they  must  come  into 
the  open  arena  of  the  world,  among  the  mass  of  every- 
day men  and  women ;  they  must  come  out  of  the  retired 
cloisters  of  the  schools.  That  they  should  emerge  clearly 
and  take  distinct  outlines,  such  outlines  as  the  populace 
can  grasp,  they  miist  be  brought  into  direct  opposition 


TJie  Higher  Jjidaism  and  Christianity,      43 

with  their  contraries  in  the  popular  tendencies  of  the 
times.  They  must  not  be  truths  of  the  study,  but  of 
the  fishing-boat,  and*  the  market,  and  the  exchange, 
and  the  country  village.  They  must  not  be  entrusted 
to  a  few  scholars,  but  sown  broadcast  over  the  people. 
They  must  not  avoid  attack,  but  meet  it ;  they  must 
not  be  kept  back  for  fear  of  revolutions,  but  must  expect 
revolutions  and  flourish  in  their,  atmosphere. 

This  was  the  element  in  which  Christ  lived,  and  these 
were  the  tests  He  chose  for  his  teaching.  He  made  his 
truths  common  property  ;  He  taught  them  to  all  alike. 
He  made  no  conditions,  required  no  special  training. 
They  were  men  to  whom  He  spoke ;  that  was  enough 
for  Christ,  and  his  practice  was  the  keynote  of  all  suc- 
ceeding efforts,  political  or  otherwise,  to  secure  liberty 
of  life  and  thought  for  the  people.  This  was  what, 
it  seems,  the  Jewish  doctors  did  not  do.  Taie  the 
instance  of  freedom  from  the  bondage  of  the  law.  We 
are  told  that  it  was  preached  before  Him.  Who  ever 
denied  it  ?  We  find  it,  independent  of  the  Talmud,  in 
other  ancient  writings.  But  again,  the  question  comes. 
Why  had  it  no  vogue  ?  Why  had  it  no  popular  fruit  ? 
Why  did  its  teaching  not  create  a  character  like  S. 
Paul's  ?  Why  had  it  no  vital,  changing,  regenerating 
power  ? 

There  was  something  dead  at  its  root.  I  believe  it 
was  that  it  was  confined  to  an  intellectual  oligarchy, 
possessing  that  indifference  to  the  ajdvance  of  spiritual 
truth  which  accompanies  a  merely  intellectual  concep- 
tion of  it ;  that  universal  tolerance  which  lets  things 
run  along,  and  which  loses  its  good  when  it  bcconips 


44.      ^^^  Higher  ytidaism  and  Christianity, 

tolerant  of  evil ;  tliat  hatred  of  revolutionary  movements 
which  has  ever  characterised  the  aristocracy  of  culture. 

Now,  if  there  is  one  oligarchy  more  tyrannical  and 
dangerous  to  true  liberty  than  another,  it  is  an  oli- 
garchy of  culture ;  and  that  was  the  position  of  the  Jewish 
sages,  exceptions  of  course  being  understood.  It  is 
inferred,  however,  that  the  Jewish  schools  were  demo- 
cratic because  every  man  was  taught  a  trade,  because 
among  the  roll  of  their  wisest  men  there  were  tanners, 
carpenters,  gardeners,  men  of  the  common  people.  But 
if  these  men  were  drawn  from  the  ranks,  it  does  not 
follow  that  they  were  fond  of  enlightening  the  class  from 
which  they  sprang.  On  the  contrary,  these  are  almost 
invariably  the  worst  defenders  of  their  own  class,  the 
most  anxious  often  to  keep  up  a  barrier,  the  greatest 
despisers  of  those  among  whom  they  once  lived :  and  as 
to  the  democratic  element  in  such  a  society,  it  may  last 
for  a  time,  but  we  know  from  the  history  of  the  mediseval 
Church,  which  drew  priests,  cardinals,  and  popes  from 
the  lowest  ranks,  what  its  boasted  sympathy  with  the 
people  came  to  in  the  end. 

No ;  I  think  we  have  every  reason  to  conclude  that 
the  text,  '  this  people  who  knoweth  not  the  law  are 
cursed,'  is  a  real  picture  of  what  was  going  on  in  Pales- 
tine at  the  time  of  our  Lord.  If  so,  can  you  wonder  at 
his  denunciations  ?  If  the  mass  of  the  Pharisees  were 
keeping  up  this  esoteric  learning,  this  seclusion  of 
higher  truths  to  a  cultured  few,  are  not  Christ's  words  of 
indignation  justified  ? — are  you  astonished  that  the  very 
truths  these  men  held  turned  to  poison  in  their  hearts  ? 
Above  all,  is  it  at  all  astonishing  that  these  truths  had 


Tlie  Highr  Judaism  and  Christianity,      45 

no  extension,  that  they  did  but  little  work,  that  they 
produced  no  universal  religion?  Th©  chill  region  of 
intellectual  knowledge  of  spiritual  truth  in  which  these 
doctors  lived  exiled  from  it  popular  enthusiasm.  Con- 
nected with  an  exclusive  class,  they  could  not  be  teachers 
of  the  common  people-  They  themselves  wanted  the 
strong  life  and  faithful  energy  which  belong  to  the 
common  people.  Only  in  that  element  could  great 
truths  organise  themselves  into  a  religion  for  men. 
Aristocracies,  and  especially  aristocracies  of  culture,  are 
not  naturally  religious ;  democracies  are.  The  religions 
of  the  world  have  arisen  from  and  been  supported  by 
the  people.  It  is  very  plain  that  Christ  saw  and  acted 
upon  that.  He  committed  his  truths  to  fishermen, 
publicans,  villagers,  to  GaUheans,  to  unlearned  and  igno- 
rant men,  whose  heai-ts  were  free  and  natural,  whose 
intellects  were  capable  of  new  thought;  He  threw 
Himself  upon  the  common  people.  He  gave  the  loftiest 
truths  to  all  men  alike.  He  rejected  all  clinging  to 
culture  which  tended  to  isolate  a  class  or  to  limit  the 
universality  of  his  work.  He  poured  '  light  and  sweet- 
ness '  on  men,  but  it  was  a  light  which  shone  like 
the  sun  upon  all  alike,  it  was  a  sweetness  of  thought 
and  feeling  which  expended  itself  upon  the  unwise  as 
well  as  the  wise,  the  outcast  from  society  as  well  as  the 
rabbi  who  was  honoured  in  the  Temple. 

It  was  partly  this  that  made  his  teaching  stream  like 
a  river  and  swell  like  a  sea.  It  was  this  partly  that 
sent  it  in  a  few  years  over' Juda3a,  Greece,  Rome,  and 
Asia.  It  was  partly  this  that  made  aU  nations  flow 
into  it.     It  was  partly  this  that  gave  it  its  expanding. 


46      The  Higher  Judaism  and  Christianity. 

its  conquering  power.  It  was  partly  this  tliat  chimed 
in  with,  the  great  movement  of  the  world  towards  the 
overthrow  of  a  corrupt  imperialism  and  a  cruel  oppres- 
sion of  the  people.  It  was  partly  this  that  sent  its 
mighty  waves  onwards  in  ever  increasing  volume,  till 
they  drowned  beneath  their  tide  the  temples  of  Pagan- 
ism and  the  ruins  of  the  old  philosophies. 

It  was  this  which  was  symbolised  at  his  birth,  when 
around  his  sacred  infancy  knelt  in  a  common  worship 
the  men  from  the  East,  the  rich,  the  wise,  and  the  nobly 
born ;  the  shepherds  from  the  hills  of  Bethlehem,  poor, 
ignorant,  and  low  born ;  when  intellect  and  ignorance 
alike  grew  wiser  by  receiving  the  kingdom  of  God  as  a 
little  child. 


JiuiiiUin  and  Christianity,  47 


JUDAISM  AND  CnRISTIANITY, 

'Whose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  he  will  throughly  purge  his  floor, 
and  will  gather  the  wheat  into  his  garner  j  but  the  chaff  ho  will 
burn  with  fire  unquenchable.' — Luke  iii.  17. 

*  It  ig  (lie  glory  of  Christianity,'  says  a  modem  writer, 

*  that  it  carried  the  golden  germs  hidden  in  the  schools 
»jid  among  the  silent  community  of  the  learned,  into 
the  market  of  humanity.'  Yes,  that  is  one  of  the  glories 
of  Christianity  as  contrasted  with  esoteric  schools,  with 
that  aristocracy  of  culture  which  reserves  truths  to  itself 
or  does  not  care,  in  learned  laziness,  to  spread  them 
among  the  common  people.  Granting  that  the  Jewish 
doctors  possessed,  before  Christ  came,  many  of  the 
truths  He  taught,  it  is  plain  that,  in  spite  of  the 
large  extension  of  schools,  there  was  no  organised  mis- 
sionary effort  to  spread  them  among  the  masses.  The 
phrase,  '  this  people  who  knoweth  not  the  law  are 
cursed,'  to  whatever  date  we  assign  the  gospel  in  which 
it  occurs,  has  its  importance  when  we  compare  it  with 
another  in  the  gospel  of  S.  Luke  :  *  The  common  people 
heard  Christ  gladly.'  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
excellence  of  the  teaching  which  lay  hid  among  the 
wise  men  of  the  Pharisees,  it  is  plain  that  it  lay  hid, 
that  the  mass  of  the  Pharisees  stood  apart  from  the 


48  yttdaism  a7id  Christianity. 

uneducated  masses  of  the  people,  and  felt  that  to  throw 
truth  broadcast  before  them  was  casting  pearls  before 
swine. 

It  is  plain  that  though  they  possessed  in  their  books 
pleasant  stories  like  the  parables,  in  which  truths  were 
represented  in  simple  and  natural  forms,  yet  that  they 
had  never  gone  about  to  recite  them  to  the  fisherman 
and  the  shepherd,  never  sought  by  delightful  out-of- 
door  teaching,  which  laid  all  nature  under  contribution, 
to  bring  around  them  a  multitude  of  men,  women,  and 
children  belonging  to  the  people.  Whatever  their 
teaching  was,  it  awakened  no  popular  enthusiasm,  it 
did  not  seek  for  the  unlearned  and  the  ignorant  by 
preference.  It  is  probable  that  they  feared  the  results  : 
partly  for  their  own  power,  which,  being  exclusive,  would 
be  sure  to  be  endangered  by  any  j)opular  movement ; 
partly  because  they  dreaded  that  a  popular  religious 
movement  might  pass  into  a  political  one,  and  involve 
them  with  the  Roman  governor.  Moreover,  the  very 
theory  which  depreciates  Christianity,  in  contrast  with 
the  higher  Judaism,  of  itself  denies  that  the  Jewish 
sages  communicated  their  truths  in  an  unrestricted 
manner  to  the  whole  mass  of  the  common  people.  It 
asks,  with  a  kind  of  suppressed  scorn,  what  you  can 
expect,  when  great  and  golden  truths  are  thrown  reck- 
lessly among  rude  and  untrained  persons,  but  a  whirl- 
wind of  aimless  enthusiasm,  and  an  overthrow  of  the 
quiet  house  of  wisdom.  It  declares  that  the  revolu- 
tionary impulse  of  Christianity  has,  while  apparently 
pushing  the  world  forward,  in  reality  put  it  back,  because 
its  truths  were  bestowed  on  ordinary  men  before  they 


yudaism  and  Chnsttanity,  49 

were  ready  for  them.  It  is  a  view  which  has  always 
characterised  exclusive  cliques  of  culture,  whether 
intellectual  or  religious.  Our  small  bodies  of  clever 
young  men,  who  have  their  peculiar  admirations  in  art 
and  poetry,  or  political  science ;  our  exquisitely  cultured 
sects  in  manners,  or  in  literature,  or  in  morals,  or 
immorals,  one  and  all,  but  with  different  vehemence 
and  meaning,  say,  *  These  people  who  know  not  the 
law  are  cursed.' 

I  rejoice  to  feel  that  Christianity  did  not  accept  that 
ground,  nor  begin  upon  it.  Neither  Christ  nor  his  fol- 
lowers had  a  shred  of  that  learned  exclusiveness  wliich 
is  content  to  think  and  contemplate,  but  shuns  the 
rude  touch  of  the  common  world.  They  had  no  well- 
bred  shrinking  from  men ;  they  sought  out  the  sinner, 
the  poverty-stricken,  the  leper,  the  harlot,  and  the 
publican.  *  It  is  to  you  I  have  been  sent,'  said  Christ ; 
'  the  kingdom  of  God  is  come  to  you  as  well  as  to 
others.'  He  had  no  thought  that  one  man,  by  educa- 
tion, or  learning,  or  genius,  or  money,  or  fame,  or  by 
anything  external,  was  spiritually  better  than  another. 
His  Father  loved  men  because  they  were  men,  and 
He  loved  those  best  who  were  humblest,  meekest, 
and  most  loving.  He  favoured  no  class.  He  gave 
special  privileges  to  no  long  descent  from  Abraham. 
All  were  Abraham's  children  who  were  like  Abraliam 
in  character.  He  had  no  fear  of  results  to  Himself  or  to 
the  people.  He  did  not  hold  back  for  an  instant  be- 
cause He  saw  what  would  follow  his  teaching — excite- 
ment, reaction,  many  evils,  his  own  death,  his  followers' 
persecution,  the  division  of  the  world  into   opposing 


50  yudaism  and  Christianity, 

camps.  He  accepted  all  these  as  necessary,  and  went 
forward  to  bear  witness  to  tlie  trntli  at  all  risks,  be- 
lieving that  it  was  sin  to  keep  back  truth  because  it 
would  create  disturbance — now  that  the  fulness  of  time 
had  come. 

Hence  his  action  proves  that  He  at  least  did  not 
hold  the  theory  of  the  undesirableness  of  revolutions. 
Indeed  we  may  assume  that  as  He  brought  a  revelation. 
He  knew  that  it  would  upturn  the  world.  Revelations 
have  always  caused  revolutions*  One  follows  on  the 
other,  as  an  outburst  of  new  life  follows  the  advent  of 
the  spring. 

There  is  a  certain  amount  of  truth,  however,  in  saying 
that  revolutions  are  undesirable ;  that  one  ought  not 
to  make  revelations  of  truths  which  cause  convulsions, 
when  the  people  are  not  prepared  for  these  truths.  But 
it  is  the  fashion  at  present  to  extend  this  rule  too  far — 
to  say  that  revolutions  are  always  undesirable.  It  is  said, 
for  instance,  that  the  revolution  which  Luther  worked  in 
religious  thought  was  premature,  that  the  learning  of  the 
Renaissance,  christianised  by  Erasmus  and  others  of  his 
type,  would  slowly  have  percolated  through  society  and 
regenerated  it,  without  bringing  in  its  train  the  intole- 
rance, war,  bigotry,  and  division  of  sects  which  followed 
the  Reformation.  It  is  an  exactly  analogous  asser- 
tiorf  to  that  which  is  made  about  Christianity  and 
the  higher  Judaism.  The  only  question  is — would  the 
percolating  process  have  succeeded ;  would  the  teaching 
of  men  like  Erasmus  have  had  force  enough  to  over- 
throw the  Epicureanism  and  infidelity  which  had 
taken  new  forms  with  the  revival  of  learning;  could 


Judaism  and  Christianity,  5 1 

it  live  in  a  period  of  change,  and  disturbance,  and  wars, 
and  become  a  imrt  of  them,  and  modify  them  to  its 
own  end ;  would  it  ever  get  below  the  educated  and 
refined  strata  of  society  ? 

It  never  did  get  below,  it  could  not  touch  the  people's 
heart ;  it  was  not  a  popular  movement,  it  shrank  from 
vulgarity  and  the  contact  of  the  common  sort ;  when 
war  came  it  retired  from  the  field  into  contemplation  ; 
it  could  not  ride  on  the  whirlwind  and  direct  the  storm. 
And  as  such,  it  had,  like  the  higher  Judaism,  no  vogue, 
no  rush,  no  rough  life  in  it,  no  future.  If  ideas  are  to 
live,  I  repeat,  they  must  be  such  as  to  move  the  common 
people. 

It  was  this  that  Luther  did.  It  may  be  answered 
that  he  clung  to  princes,  and  opposed  tHe  war  against 
the  oppression  of  the  nobles.  It  is  true,  but  the  ideas 
he  gave  were  ideas  which  seized  on  the  hearts  of  the 
common  people,  and  though  his  action  may  have  been 
aristocratic,  his  thought  was  making  democracy.  He 
claimed  in  the  realm  of  religion  freedom  of  thought 
for  all,  and  though  he  opposed  the  peasant  war,  and 
would  have  hated  the  principles  of  the  French  revolu- 
tion, yet  these  were  both  the  direct  results  of  a  teaching 
which  men  were  not  slow  to  transfer  from  the  sphere  of 
religion  to  the  sphere  of  politics. 

The  same  is  true,  certain  things  being  changed,  .with 
regard  to  Christianity  and  Judaism.  Christ,  as  Luther 
did,  saw  that  this  cloistered  wisdom  whicJi  was  not 
given  to  the  common  people  would  never  do  anything — 
that  it  had  not  power  to  overcome  the  carelessness, 
immorality,  and  selfishness  of  the  Jewish  and  heathen 


52  Jtidaism  and  Christianity. 

world,  and  He  chose  deliberately  the  sudden  revealing 
of  truth  in  preference  to  the  system  which  said :  Let 
truth  slowly  filter  through  the  world.  He  chose  revo- 
lution. 

But  we  cannot  imagine  that  He  chose  it,  as  Luther 
did,  without  knowing  what  He  did.  Luther  did  not  see 
results ;  Christ  did.  He  knew.  He  felt,  with  the  divine 
instinct  of  one  in  whom  the  heart  of  the  whole  race 
beat,  that  the  revolution  which  He  made  was  not  only 
not  undesirable,  but  absolutely  necessary.  For  the 
ideas  of  the  old  world  were  exhausted,  at  least  in  their 
existing  form.  Those  of  them  which  were  true  needed 
a  new  ispirit.  The  fulness  of  time,  as  S.  Paul  says,  had 
come,  and  if  Christ  did  not  act  now,  decay  would  have 
advanced  too  fkr  for  a  resurrection. 

The  pear  was  ripe,  it  would  not  do  to  wait  till  it 
was  rotten.  The  objection  is  that  the  revelation  was 
given  too  soon,  that  it  produced  a  convulsion,  and 
had  all  the  faults  of  a  convulsion.  But  there  are 
times  in  history  when,  as  in  the  physical  world,  the 
forces  which  have  been  generating  for  many  centuries 
reach  at  last  their  maximum  of  expansion.  One  touch 
then,  and  the  earthquake  or  the  revolution  takes  place. 
Of  the  old  Jewish  and  heathen  thought  there  was 
nothing  existing  but  the  superficial  crust.  Beneath, 
all  had  been  metamorphosed  into  elements  which 
wanted  but  a  touch  to  reorganise  themselves  into  a 
new  form. of  religion.  It  was  the  fulness  of  time; 
Christ  came ;  a  new  element  was  added  to  those  already 
in  solution,  and  all  leaped  into  life  as  Christianity. 

The  very  fact  on  which  so  much  stress  lias  been  laid. 


yudaism  and  Chrisiianiiy,  53 

that  the  higher  Jewish  thought  resembled  the  Christian 
thought,  is  a  proof  of  the  metamorphosis  of  the  old 
Judaic  elements.  But  when  it  is  said  that  this  resem- 
blance or  identity  made  the  Christian  revolution  un- 
necessary, it  is  forgotten  that  though  the  thought  was 
new  the  forms  were  old.  The  thoughts  of  Hillel  and 
others  could  not  get  into  acceptance  because  new 
thoughts  cannot  be  communicated  through  old  forms. 
Christ  Himself  saw  that  clearly.  No  man.  He  said, 
l^utteth  new  cloth  on  an  old  garment.  Nay  more,  the 
new  thought  in  that  case  is  lost,  and  so  are  the  old 
forms.  *  The  bottles  break,  and  the  wine  is  spilled.  But 
new  wine  is  put  into  new  bottles,  and  both  are  preserved.' 
It  is  an  exact  parable  of  the  fate  of  the  higher  Judaism 
and  of  the  success  of  Christianity. 

Again,  supposing  that  Christ  had  not  caused  this 
revolution  which  upturned  the  old  edifice,  the  edifice 
must  have  perished  all  the  same.  It  might  not  have 
fallen,  as  He  made  it  fall,  in  a  moment  and  with  a 
crash,  but  it  would  have  melted  away  piece  by  piece. 
And  if  the  new  ideas  had  been  connected  with  it  and 
sent  forth  to  the  wo'i'ld  from  it,  as  the  theory  w.o  are 
opposing  wishes,  the  result  would  have  been  the  de- 
struction, for  a  time  at  least,  of  the  ideas.  They 
would  have  been  involved  in  its  ruin.  This  is  what  the 
sudden  revolution  of  Christianity  avoided :  Christ  con- 
nected the  new  thought  with  a  new  form,  and  directed 
it  into  a  right  channel. 

This  also  was  of  importance,  that  it  should  be  rightly 
directed.  Had  He  not  come,  what  would  have  been  the 
end  ?     Would  the  new  thought  have  gone  on  filtering 


54  yudaism  and  Christianity, 

slowly  tlirougli  the  world  ?  By  no  means.  It  was  too 
strong  for  that.  Its  fountain  waters  were  too  near 
the  surface.  It  was  too  late  for  slow  filtration.  Men 
strove  to  keep  it  back  for  fear  of  the  excitement  it  would 
cause  among  the  people ;  but  they  could  not  altogether 
restrain  it,  and  it  broke  forth  in  isolated  places  and  in 
portions,  which,  because  they  were  only  portions  of 
truth,  took  false  forms.  Already,  before  Christ  came, 
there  had  been  two  political  religious  revivals  of  the 
w^orst  kind.  If  He  had  not  come,  the  new  thought 
would  have  taken  the  form  of  a  political  revolution, 
and  been  crushed  with  it  by  the  Romans ;  while  with  its 
overthrow  would  have  perished  also  all  that  was  great 
and  noble  in  the  old  Judaism.  It  would  have  been 
universal  ruin. 

Christ  came  and  hewed  out  for  its  waters  a  new  and 
fitting  channel.  He  led  it  away  from  the  political 
groove  where  it  would  have  been  destroyed,  by  uniting 
it  with  a  spiritual  kingdom.  '  My  kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world.'  He  added  to  it  other  and  deeper  thoughts. 
He  freed  it  from  the  danger  which  beset  it  from  the 
side  .of  the  Roman  government.  He  gave  it  free  course 
over  a  region  wide  as  mankind,  but  into  which  the 
Roman  power  did  not  care  to  enter.  By  these  means 
He  succeeded  in  retaining  all  that  was  good  in  the 
past,  and  made  the  growth  of  the  new  religion  succes- 
sive and  not  sudden,  easy  and  not  violent,  healthy  and 
not  convulsive.  Instead,  then,  of  saying  that  Christ 
caused  a  revolution  which  put  back  the  progress  of  the 
world,  we  should  say  that  He  saved  the  revolution  which 
was   necessary  from   the   violence   which   would  have 


Judaism  and  Christuvtity,  55 

l)rought  about  its  ruin ;  that  He  saved  it  from  having 
to  be  done  all  over  again,  as,  to  give  a  political  illus- 
( ration,  has  been  the  case  with  the  French  revolution. 

Wliat  now  were  the  characteriatics  of  this  revolution  ? 
1.  It  was  destructive.  It  proclaimed  T^ar  against  the  prin- 
ciples opposed  to  it.  In  this  at  least  it  dififcred  totally 
from  the  supposed  idea  of  the  Jewish  wisdom.  To  an- 
nounce war  against  the  old  systems,  uncompromising 
war,  could  not  be  held  in  that  idea.  The  theory  is  that 
the  Jewish  sages  wished  to  slowly  winnow  away  the 
chaff  and  leave  the  corn.  It  is  the  idea  which  naturally 
belongs  to  a  high  culture.  Every  cultivated  man  allows 
its  excellence,  and  it  is  fully  contained  and  accepted  in 
Christianity,  the  slowness  of  the  growth  of  which  is 
insisted  on  again  and  again  by  Christ.  But  there  are 
certain  times  in  history  when  a  great  shock  is  necessary, 
;ind  those  are  the  greatest  men  who  can  see  this  and 
boldly  risk  the  danger.  There  arc  times  when  it  is  too 
late  to  expect  that  the  world  can  be  saved  by  the  instil- 
lation of  good,  times  when  the  chaff  is  so  multitudinous 
and  so  rotten  that  the  wheat  is  in  a  double  danger,  the 
danger  of  being  lost,  the  danger  of  being  corrupted. 
The  only  thing  then  is  to  bum  up  the  chaff  at  once 
with  a  fire  which  will  not  touch  the  wheat.  This, 
which  cannot  be  done  in  the  physical,  can  be  done  in 
the  moral  and  spiritual  world.  It  is  the  characteristic 
property  of  a  noble  and  living  idea,  when  it  gets  loose 
upon  the  world,  to  consume  all  that  is  base  and  dead, 
and  to  assimilate  all  that  is  like  itself.  Christ  saw  that 
the  time  had  come,  that  the  whole  world  of  Jews  and 
heathens  was   so   choked  up  with  chaff  that   a   slow 


56  yudaism  and  Christianity, 

process  would  be  ruin.  He  seized  the  moment,  He 
accepted  its  dangers,  and  He  sent  forth  ideas  which 
flew  along  like  flame,  consuming,  destroying,  but  also 
assimilating.  '  Whose  fan  was  in  his  hand,  and  He  did 
throughlj  purge  Ifis  floor,  and  gather  the  wheat  into 
his  garner.  But  the  chaff  He  burned  up  with  un- 
quenchable fire.' 

It  is  curious  how  clearly  his  Apostles  saw,  through 
his  spirit,  that  the  race  of  the  old  philosophies  and 
of  Judaism  under  its  old  forms  was  run.  The  fa- 
bric of  Eoman  heathenistn  was  at  its  highest  external 
splendour ;  the  fabric  of  Judaic  morality  had  never 
been  so  concentrated,  so  powerful  over  the  souls  of 
men.  It  would  seem  insanity  to  attack  them ;  it 
would  raise  a  laugh  to  say  that  they  were  dead.  And 
yet  a  few  unlearned  and  common  men  said  that  both 
were  effete,  that  their  fabrics  were  rotten  inwardly,  that 
they  only  wanted  a  push  to  perish.  As  such,  they  were 
corrupting  the  world,  and  no  mercy  was  to  be  shown  to 
them.  And  the  rain  descended  and  the  wind  blew  and 
the  floods  beat  upon  those  specious  houses  in  every  word 
which  the  disciples  of  Jesus  spake,  and  they  fell,  and 
great  was  the  fall  of  them.  They  were  founded  on  the 
sand.  The  result  proved  that  Christianity  was  right, 
for  the  victory  was  won  against  tremendous  odds,  not  by 
force  of  arms  but  by  force  of  faith  and  force  of  thought. 

2.  But  if  Christianity  was  destructive  as  a  revolution 
it  was  also  preservative.  If  Christ  sent  forth  ideas 
which  consumed  the  chaff.  He  sent  them  forth  also  to 
gather  the  wheat  into  his  garner.  The  judgment  of 
the  corrupt  elements  in  the  Jewish  and  heathen  worlds 


yudaism  and  Christianity.  57 

enabled  Christianity,  ere  it  was  too  late,  to  assimilate 
theii-  scattered  wheat.  No  noble  feeling  or  true  thoujjjht, 
eitln^r  in  Judaism  or  in  heathenism,  perished.  They 
were  taken  up  and  woven  into  the  new  fabric.  Take 
an  historical  instance.  Rome  had  still  a  splendid  code 
and  tradition  of  law,  civilised  customs,  a  majestic 
mode  of  building,  a  literature,  an  impressive  social 
culture.  These  were  all  bound  up  with  an  empire 
which,  as  the  years  went  on,  fell  ever  more  rapidly 
to  pieces.  Its  death-throes  were  protracted,  but  death 
was  there.  Now  why,  when  the  northern  nations  came 
like  eagles  on  this  carcase,  why  did  not  all  these  useful 
elements  perish  with  it?  Because  when  the  nations 
came  they  found  all  these  elements  not  only  in  the 
dying  empire,  but  in  the  living  Church.  Christianity 
had  taken  them  into  itself,  assimilated  them ;  and  so 
abounding  in  life  was  the  new  Christian  body  that  it 
conquered  the  conquerors  of  Rome  and  handed  on  to  the 
new  peoples  which  grew  out  of  the  barbarian  hordes 
the  unextinguished  torches  of  Roman  literature,  of  Ro- 
man law,  of  Roman  culture,  of  Roman  architecture. 

It  was  the  same  with  religion.  At  Alexandria,  at 
Rome,  in  Greece,  in  the  East,  wherever  Christianity 
came,  it  displayed  this  wonderful  power  of  collecting 
into  itself  and  using  the  living  thoughts  of  the  past, 
while  it  rejected  those  that  had  no  vitality.  It  abolished 
nil  the  old  forms  in  which  these  living  thoughts  had 
been  clothed,  it  took  the  living  things  themselves,  and 
modified  them  so  as  to  unite  them  to  its  own  life.  It 
was  this  which  soon  collected  into  the  Church  almost 
all  the  intellect  of  the  world  of  that  time. 


58  Judaism  and  Christianity. 

3.  Its  third  element  was  a  civilising  power.  Neither 
Greek  science  nor  Roman  culture  had  power  to  spread 
beyond  themselves.  The  Eomans  themselves — and  we 
have  the  testimony  of  the  Emperor  Julian  to  this — con- 
sidered the  barbarous  "Western  nations  incapable  of 
culture.  The '  fact  was  that  Rome  did  not  try  to 
civilise  in  the  right  way.  Instead  of  drawing  forth  the 
native  energies  of  these  nations,  while  it  left  them 
free  to  develope  their  own  national  peculiarities  in 
their  own  way,  it  imposed  on  them  from  without  the 
Roman  education.  It  tried  to  turn  them  into  Romans. 
Where  this  effort  was  unsuccessful,  the  men  remained 
barbarous ;  where  it  was  successful,  the  nation  lost  its 
distinctive  elements  in  the  Roman  elements,  at  least 
till  after  some  centuries  the  overwhelming  influence  of 
Rome  had  perished.  Meantime,  they  were  not  Britons, 
nor  Gauls,  but  spurious  Romans.  The  natural  growth  of 
the  people  was  arrested.  Men  living  out  of  their  native 
element  became  stunted  and  spiritless. 

It  was  of  the  first  importance,  then,  that  some  civil- 
ising influence  should  arise  which  should  permit  of 
free  development — which  should  save  the  world  from 
the  dilemma  of  being  made  altogether  in  the  Roman 
pattern,  or  of  remaining  in  barbarism. 

This  was  the  work  of  Christianity,  and  it  was  done 
by  its  ministers,  in  the  first  place,  not  as  apostles  of 
culture,  but  as  persons  who  spoke  to  the  common  wants 
of  the  spirit  of  man.  They  made  simple  statements 
which  appealed  to  universal  feelings,  and  for  the  truth 
of  which  they  appealed  to  the  necessities  of  man.  God 
is  Love,  they  said ;  One  h  .s  come  who  will  give  rest  to 
the  weary  and  heavy-laden ;  there  is  a  world  in  which 


yudaism  a  fid  Christianity,  59 

all  men  are  equal,  and  all  brothers,  as  children  of  a 
lieavenly  Father ;  the  spirit  of  man  is  as  immortal  as 
God  Himself;  the  sense  of  sin  in  the  heart  is  taken 
away  by  a  Saviour  who  redeems  us  by  giving  us  power 
to  do  sin  no  more.  These  and  others  fell  like  dew  upon 
the  thirsty  land  of  the  spirit  of  man,  and  awoke  into  life 
the  seeds  of  the  spiritual  powers ;  the  resurrection  of 
the  soul  to  life  took  place.  That  was  the  first  step. 
One  part  of  the  man  began  to  live  naturally,  freely, 
lovingly.  But  it  is  the  property  of  life  to  communicate 
itself  to  all  parts  of  the  system  in  which  it  begins  to 
act ;  and  on  the  development  of  the  spirit  followed  the 
development  of  the  heart  and  the  intellect.  And  the 
growth  was  from  within  outwardly.  The  Christian 
teachers  reversed  the  Roman  mode  of  proceeding. 
Hence  the  peculiar  character  of  any  nation  was  not 
lost  in  Christianity,  but,  so  far  as  it  was  good,  developed 
and  intensified.  The  people  grew  naturally  into  their 
distinctive  type  and  place  in  the  world. 

But  was  it  zeal  for  science  or  love  of  philosophy  which 
led  men  to  leave  the  pleasant  seats  of  civilisation  to 
instruct  and  help  the  barbarous  nations  ?  Neither  Stoic, 
nor  Platonist,  nor  Judaic  Neo-Platonist  ever  did  it.  No ; 
the  power  which  led  them  forth  was  the  kindling  with- 
in them  of  a  great  love  to  a  divine  man,  who  said  that 
all  men  were  his  brothers,  who  had  given  his  life  for 
all,  and  who  declared  that  those  who  loved  Him  should 
go  forth  to  preach  his  good  tidings,  to  heal  the  sick,  to 
bind  up  the  broken  heart,  to  deliver  those  who  were 
bound,  to  seek  and  save  the  lost.  This  was  work  which 
the  exclusive  spirit  of  the  Jewish  sages  could  not  do. 

The   missionary   spirit   was   the   product  of  love  to 


6o  yudaism  and  Christianity. 

Christ.     The  civilisation  of  the  barbarians  was  the  pro-, 
duct  of  the  missionary  spirit. 


And  now,  in  conclusion,  we  resume  all  that  has  been 
said,  in  another  form.  That  which  is  true  about  the 
great  movements  of  the  world  is  not  without  its  personal 
interest  to  us,  nor  without  its  analogies  in  our  life. 
We  also  have  our  revolutions. 

Much  has  been  said  about  the  crisis  which  comes 
upon  many  young  men  after  their  entrance  into  life, 
when,  after  emerging  from  the  university,  the  first 
overwhelming  impression  of  the  movements  and  com- 
plexity of  the  great  world  is  made  upon  them.  But 
little  has  been  said  of  that  more  secret  upturning 
of  the  soul  which  takes  place  in  manhood,  and  of 
which  the  outspoken  early  movement  is  but  the  fore- 
runner— the  little  wave  which  breaks  in  foam  and  noise 
upon  the  beach,  before  the  long,  massive,  immense 
volume  of  the  swell  glides  silently  up  the  shore  to  move 
the  very  foundations  of  the  breakwater.  Men  and 
women  rarely  speak  of  this ;  the  only  outward  sign  is  a 
slight  tinge  of  bitterness.  .  But  beneath  the  quietude  a 
tempest  is  at  work.  The  time  comes,  vrhen  a  man  knows 
that  if  he  is  to  be  worth  anything,  he  must  be  true,  he 
must  get  rid  of  all  conventional  beliefs  and  understand 
what  he  means  and  on  what  he  can  rest.  The  old  forms 
of  his  thought  are  exhausted;  the  old  religion  of  his 
childhood  has  no  words  for  him  ;  the  very  enthusiasms 
of  his  youth  he  finds  but  poor  images  of  the  unreached 
ideals  which  cry  aloud  within  him.  By  many  impulses 
and  events,  by  loves,  sorrows,  hates ;  by  clashing  with  the 


yudaism  and  Christianity,  6 1 

world,  by  unexpected  agonies  in  his  own  heart ;  by  tlio 
weaving  and  unweaving  of  life— by  the  direct  speech  of 
God — the  elements  of  a  new  being  have  gradually  col- 
lected beneath  the  crust  of  the  old.  New  ideas,  new 
points  of  view,  new  perceptions  of  the  world  around,  new 
phases  of  old  problems,  have  gradually  accumulated  till 
the  ancient  forms  are  no  longer  able  to  bear  the  pres- 
sure. The  fulness  of  time  has  come ;  a  revolution  is 
necessar}'. 

It  is  sore  work  when  that  day  arrives,  and  men  are 
often  so  tired  then  that  it  seems  unfair  that  all  the  inner 
life  should  be  again  disturbed,  and  that,  not  as  before  on 
the  surface,  but  down  to  and  throughout  the  very  depths 
of  being.  But  it  is  at  the  peril  of  our  worthiness  that 
we  refuse  its  call,  and  hush  its  elements  into  a  false 
peace ;  we  must  go  through  with  it. 

The  solemn  question  is — how  will  its  elements  break 
out  ? — towards  the  world  or  towards  God  ?  Shall  the 
spirit  of  Theudas  and  Judas  be  at  its  head,  or  the  spirit 
of  Christ?  Will  it  be  ruled  by  the  spirit  of  meekness, 
of  dependence  on  a  Father,  or  by  the  spirit  of  display 
and  self-dependence  ?  Will  the  final  result  of  it  be — 
'  Not  this  man,  but  Barabbas ' — or  '  For  this  end  was  I 
bom,  and  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the  world,  to  bear 
vntness  to  the  truth '? 

There  are  many  to  whom  these  words  of  mine,  vague 
as  they  are,  have  their  meaning.  Such  secret  revolu- 
tions are  more  frequent  every  day. 

I  will  not  say  what  is  the  result  if  the  overthrow  of 
the  old  is  followed  by  an  overthrow  of  all,  and  faith  in 
God,  in  morality,  in  immortality,  is  drowned ;  but  1 
will  say  what  this  revolution  is,  if  it  is  towards  God. 


62  Judaism  and  Christianity. 

It  is  also  destructive.  It  brings  with,  it  a  living 
flame  v^liicli  burns  up  our  chaff.  It  goes  forth  to  con- 
sume our  evil,  and  it  does  not  cease.  It  proclaims  war 
against  all  that  is  base,  unbelieving,  unhopeful,  and 
unloving.  It  takes  us  into  union  with-  Christ — the 
hater,  the  enemy,  and  the  conqueror  of  evil. 

It  is  preservative.  It  destroys  nothing  which  is  noble 
in  our  past ;  it  does  not  limit  or  enslave  any  high  thought 
or  true  aspiration ;  it  does  not  crush  our  nature,  where 
our  nature  has  been  godlike.  It  takes,  on  the  contrary, 
all  things  good  into  itself ;  it  assimilates  their  elements, 
and  informs  them  with  its  own  life;  it  makes  them 
nobler,  greater,  and  eternal,  by  uniting  them  to  a  new 
and  living  idea,  and  by  directing  them  to  find  their 
growth  and  their  goal  in  God,  from  whom  they  came. 

And  lastly,  it  goes  forth  to  civilise — or,  shall  we 
say,  to  sanctify  the  whole  man.  It  penetrates  to  the 
outlying  portions  of  the  soul  which  as  yet  have  not 
been  touched.  It  awakens  capabilities  the  existence  of 
which  we  did  not  suspect.  It  brings  into  harmony 
with  God,  interests — such  as  love  of  art,  or  the  serious 
play  of  imagination,  or  political  or  business  life — which 
we  thought  could  not  have  anything  to  do  with  re- 
ligious life.  It  institutes  and  carries  out  an  inward 
missionary  movement  to  every  point  of  our  manifold 
nature,  till  the  whole  man  is  saved,  ennobled^  purified ; 
and  we  are  as  the  world  shall  be,  wholly  redeemed  and 
glorified,  body,  soul,  and  spirit. 

Therefore,  0  God  our  Father,  come  to  us  through 
Christ  this  Advent  time.  Incarnate"  Thyself  in  us. 
Give  to  us  the  revelation  which  makes  revolution. 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity.  63 


THE   CENTRAL   TRUTH  OF  CHRISTIANITY, 

*  And  the  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us.'— John  i.  14. 

It  happened,  once  on  a  time,  as  men  went  to  and  fro 
in  the  world  who  were  interested  in  the  arts,  that  they 
discovered,  at  different  periods,  and  hidden  away  in 
many  countries,  portions,  it  seemed,  of  exquisite  statues 
— a  foot,  an  arm,  a  torso,  a  broken  hand.  Something 
superb  in  each  of  these  made  men  recognise  them  at 
once  as  perfect.  Each  nation  cherished  their  separate 
piece  as  an  ideal  of  art ;  each  drifted  into  a  thousand 
suspicions  as  to  the  author  and  his  intention ;  each 
completed  the  statue  from  conjecture  according  to  their 
own  ability.  At  last,  owing  to  the  decay  of  the  nations, 
and  to  the  rise  of  one  upon  their  ruins,  all  the  several 
pieces  were  collected  in  one  museum.  They  were  still 
considered  as  belonging  to  separate  nations  and  periods 
of  art.  Dissertations  were  written  and  lectures  were 
delivered  upon  them ;  the  ideal  completions  which  each 
nation  had  made  of  their  several  pieces  were  placed 
beside  them,  and  the  completions  studied  with  infinite 
criticism. 

One  day,  however,  when  the  artist  world  were  col- 
lected in  the  museum,   a  man  whom   no  one  knew, 


# 

64  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity, 

entered,  and  slowly  went  from  room  to  room  examining 
the  famous  remnants  one  after  another,  but  passing  by 
the  completions  of  each  with  some  indifference.  At 
last  he  approached  the  group  of  artists  :  '  Sirs,'  he  said, 
*  I  have  examined  your  famous  pieces  of  sculpture,  and 
their  ideal  restorations.  The  restorations  are  interest- 
ing as  examples  of  art  at  different  periods,  but  worth- 
less as  a  foundation  for  any  true  ideal.  But,  did  it  never 
strike  you  that  all  your  pieces  are  of  the  same  time  and 
by  the  same  hand,  and  that  you  have  but  to  bring  them 
together  out  of  their  several  rooms  and  unite  them  ? 
Your  ideal  statue  is  among  you,  and  you  know  it  not.' 
When  he  had  thus  spoken,  many  laughed  and  some 
mocked,  but  a  few  were  found  to  listen ;  the  greater 
part,  however,  as  the  stranger  grew  more  earnest,  be- 
came indignant — for  what  would  become  of  their  art 
theories  if  he  were  right  ? — and  drove  him  out  of  the 
museum  with  ignominy.  But  the  few  sought  him  out, 
and  it  is  said  that  they  entered  the  building  by  night 
and  brought  together  the  remnants,  the  stranger  super- 
intending, and  found  it  even  as  he  had  said.  They  saw 
the  statue  grow,  piece  by  piece,  into  unity,  but  at  the 
end  the  head  was  wanting.  A  great  cry  of  pity  arose — 
'  What ! '  they  wept,  '  shall  we  never  see  the"  ideal 
realised  ? '  But  the  stranger,  as  they  wept,  drew  from  be- 
neath his  cloak  the  head,  and  crowned  the  statue  with 
completeness.  And  as  he  did  so,  he  passed  away  and 
was  seen  no  more.  But  the  perfect  thing  remained — the 
pure  ideal  of  divine  art,  fully  realised  at  last.  Then 
those  few  gave  up  their  theories,  and  their  delight  in 
the  separate  remnants  and  their  restorations,  and  went 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity,  65 

abroad,  taking  with  tliem  tlio  perfect  thing,  to  preach 
a  new  kingdom  of  art ;  and  when  men  asked  them  to 
define  and  theorise  art,  they  stept  aside,  and  unveiling 
the  statue,  said,  '  Look  and  see ;  this  is  Art.  If  you  can 
receive  it,  you  too  will  become  artists.  This  is  all  our 
definition,  this  is  all  our  theory.'  And  some  believed  and 
others  did  not,  but  slowly  the  new  ideal  won  its  way, 
till  it  grew  to  be  the  rule  and  the  model  of  the. greater 
part  of  the  artist  world. 

Of  what  took  place  at  the  museum  when  the  mockers 
found  their  pieces  gone — of  how  they  fought  against 
the  possessors  of  the  statue,  and  denied  that  it  had 
anything  to  do  with  their  lost  remnants ;  of  how  they 
made  counterfeits  of  these  remnants,  and  clung  to  their 
ancient  restorations  as  the  true  ideals — I  need  not  tell ; 
nor  yet  of  a  more  pitiable  thing — of  how  in  after  times 
the  followers  of  the  true  ideal  made  false  copies  of  it, 
modifying  it,  and  introducing  their  own  ideas  into  it, 
and  held  up  these,  and  not  the  perfect  statue,  for  the 
imitation  and  aspiration  of  the  world  of  art.  Are  not 
these  things  written  in  history  ?  But  again  and  again, 
the  one  efibrt  of  all  true  artists  since  has  been  to  bring 
back  men  to  the  contemplation  of  that  single  figure. 

This  parable  illustrates  what  I  have  been  saying 
for  some  Sundays.  The  scattered  truths  of  the  world 
were  truths  from  God.  Men  wove  diverse  religions 
round  the  diverse  truths.  At  last  Christ  came,  and 
did  not  reject,  but  brought  together  in  Himself,  the 
previous  truths — made  them  for  the  first  time  fit  into 
one  another,  so  that  each  took  its  place;  and  then 
4 


66  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity. 

crowned  them  with,  the  completing  and  new  truth — 
the  truth  of  the  Divine  Man. 

These  two  things — the  bringing  into  harmony  of 
truths  and  the  addition  of  the  truth  of  the  God  Man 
— are  distinctive  peculiarities  of  Christianity,  and  of 
these  we  speak  to-day. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  the 
harmonising  of  truth.  Before  the  time  of  Newton, 
many  isolated  facts  concerning  the  universe  and  its 
motions  had  been  discovered,  but  they  remained  like 
isolated  lights  at  a  distance  from  each  other.  But  when 
the  philosopher  came  who  saw  into  the  life  of  things, 
and  the  theory  of  gravitation  was  born,  it  made  the 
previous  truths  concordant ;  their  separate  lights  shot 
into  its  brilliant  beam,  and  the  beacon  blazed  by  which 
we  read  the  secrets  of  the  universe.  It  was  then  that 
the  astronomer's  work  became  practical.  He  had  a 
truth  which  gave  tenfold  value  to  other  truths,  and 
made  them  instruments  of  tenfold  power.  He  had  a 
truth  in  which  all  the  phenomena  of  nature  were  corre- 
lated, and  as  he  learnt  their  several  relations,  each 
became  a  key  to  unlock  the  difficulties  of  the  others. 
Much  remained  unexplained,  but  he  knew  now  that 
investigation  and  patience  were  all  that  were  needed. 
He  had  the  key  of  the  universe  in  his  hand ;  he  was 
sure  of  finding  out  all  truth  within  the  sphere  of  his 
special  business. 

This  is  that  which  Christ  did  for  us.  We  have  granted 
that  many  truths  which  He  declared  afresh  existed 
before  his  time;  but  they  were  isolated,  their  mutual 
connection  was  not  perceived.       Hence   they  had  no 


TJie  Central  Truth  of  Christiiuiity.         6^ 

regenerative  power,  but  little  practical  power.  Great 
men  worked  at  them,  carried  them  out  into  separate 
philosophies,  but  they  never  got  any  wide  popular  in- 
fluence, and  they  were  finally  buried  under  a  weight 
of  conjectures  and  conceits.  The  first  enthusiasm  they 
had  created  died  away — nor,  indeed,  did  they  ever  pro- 
duce that  peculiar  characteristic  of  Christianity,  an 
active  and  unceasing  propagandism. 

But  under  the  transforming  hand  of  Christ,  these 
truths  came  together  into  a  perfect  whole.  The  truth 
of  doing  good  for  good's  sake  became  in  harmony  with 
the  truth  of  doing  good  for  the  sake  of  immortal  life. 
They  had  formerly  clashed,  and  there  are  persons  yet 
who  think  they  clash.  The  truth  that  the  soul  is  to 
be  absorbed  in  God  united  itself  with  the  truth  of  the 
distinct  personality  of  the  soul,  and  in  uniting,  the  one 
lost  its  pantheism  and  the  other  its  isolated  self-de- 
pendence. The  truth  that  men  lived  by  faith,  and  the 
apparently  opposed  truth  that  they  lived  by  works, 
found  in  the  love  which  Christ  awoke  to  Himself  a 
point  where  they  mingled  into  one.  No  truth  was  left 
to  sound  its  note  alone,  but  all  together  harmonised 
arose  into 

That  undistxirbed  song  of  pure  concent 

Aye  sung  before  the  sapphire  coloured  throne. 

If  this  be  true,  it  forms  one  of  the  distinctive  qualitieg 
of  Christianity.  No  heathen  philosophy  had  done  it, 
no  heathen  religion  had  attempted  it.  In  fact,  they 
had  not  the  materials.  No  Jewish  Doctors  had  suc- 
ceeded in  it,  though  they  had  attempted  it.  One  or 
two  may  have  had,  as  had  the  heathen,  glimpses  of  it — 


68  TIte  Central  Truth  of  Christianity. 

all  had  a  vague  suspicion  of  it ;  but  it  still  remained  a 
vision  till  Christ  came  and  supplied  the  magic  word 
which  gave  the  spiritual  affinity  of  all  truths  space  and 
power  to  act. 

Immediately  on  coming  into  harmony,  they  became 
inspiring  principles  in  men  and  instruments  powerful 
fo#  practical  work.  They  took  new  and  vigorous  de- 
velopments— as,  for  example,  the  truth  of  immortality. 
The  men  who  possessed  them  were  conscious  of  power, 
and  they  laboured  as  if  they  were  secure  of  victory. 
They  did  not  mind  stating  apparently  opposed  truths  ; 
they  knew  that  they  could  give  to  men  a  higher  truth, 
in  which  the  contradictories  became  two  sides  of  thei 
same  truth.  And  when  the  glorious  oratorio  of  Chris- 
tian truth  was  sung,  with  parts  for  every  nation, 
and  the  chorus  rose  in  which  the  most  diverse  found 
themselves  in  harmony,  men  said.  This  is  unique  in 
the  world's  history.  Heathenism,  philosophies.  Oriental 
thought,  Hebraism,  Judaism,  have  never  done  work 
like  this. 

But  what  was  the  crowning  truth  which  completed 
the  ideal  statue  ? — what  was  the  magic  word  which  set 
separated  truths  flowing  together? — what  was  the 
directing  element  which  harmonised  the  varied  songs 
of  truth  into  a  whole  ?  It  was  the  doctrine,  or  rather 
tjie  fact,  of  the  Divine  Man;  the  truth  of  the  Word 
made  flesh,  the  fact  that  God  had  entered  into  Man,  had 
revealed  the  Divinity  of  Man,  the  Humanity  of  God. 
This  is  the  central  truth  of  the  world.  This  is  the  truth 
without  which  all  other  truths  fall  back  into  their  isola- 
'  tion.    This  is  the  key  to  all  the  mysteries  of  life  within 


The  Cmtral  Truth  of  Christianity,         69 

and  life  without.  This  is  the  axis  on  which  the  whole 
sphere  of  religious  truth  spins  round,  without  a  check, 
ill  exquisite  unity  of  pai'ts,  with  exquisite  unity  of 
purpose ;  and  this  is  the  essential  difference  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  distinctive  declaration  of  Christianity,  the 
under ived  and  original  conception  of  Christ.  No 
Gentile  nation  gave  it  to  the  world ;  no  Jewish  sages 
brought  it  forth.  It  is  the  only  begotten  son  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

It  is  true,  that  both  east  and  west  sought  to  realise 
this  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  Divine  and  Human ; 
and  it  has  been  said,  on  the  one  side,  that  it  was  de- 
rived from  the  Indian  religions,  and  on  the  other  from 
the  Greek, 

Let  us  see  if  this  be  true. 

In  the  East,  the  Hindoo  conceived  of  God  assuming 
the  form  of  man  in  order  to  convey  truth  and  to  bring 
man  to  Himself.  God  condescends  to  man — so  far  it 
is  Christian.  But  is  it  the  Christian  idea  ?  It  wants 
its  very  essence,  the  assumption  of  the  whole  nature  of 
man  into  deity.  Yishnu,  when  he  returns  to  heaven, 
lays  aside  his  human  nature.  Again,  there  are  many 
incarnations  of  Yishnu,  in  diverse  forms ;  there  is  there- 
fore no  true  conception  of  the  essential  and  complete 
unity  of  God  and  Man :  once  done,  it  would  .be  done 
for  ever.  Again,  as  the  Hindoo  idea  developed,  its 
underlying  thought  of  the  antagonism  between  the 
divine  and  the  human,  the  infinite  aiid  the  finite,  grew 
into  prominence.  We  find,  when  the  two  are  repre- 
sented as  coming  together,  that  the  human  element 
is   annihilated,   and  the  divine  Manhood  is  therefore 


7o  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity. 

only  apparent,  and  not  real.  Hence  at  last  arose  tlie 
Hindoo  conception  that  the  perfect  spiritual  stage  of 
any  man  was  only  reached  when  he  himself  was  lost 
as  an  individual,  when  his  Man's  nature  was  consumed 
in  absorption  in  the  Divine.  Finally,  in  Buddhism, 
both  God  and  Man  may  be  said  to  have  perished  in 
the  idea  of  the  absolute  Nothing,  or,  if  we  take  the 
materialistic  view  of  Buddhism,  in  the  idea  of  the  all- 
containing  world.  This  is  not  the  Christian  thought, 
nor  is  it  its  source. 

Turn  now  to  the  West,  take  the  Greek  effort  to  find 
this  unity  of  the  divine  and  human.  The  Greek  com- 
menced at  the  other  end  from  the  Hindoo.  The 
Hindoo  began  with  God,  the  Greek  with  man.  The 
Hindoo  started  from  the  point  of  entire  resignation  to 
God ;  the  Greek  from  the  idea  of  free  self-development. 
By  active  effort  of  intellect  and  soul,  man,  thought  the 
Greek,  might  attain  to  union  yvith  the  Divine,  be  worthy 
to  ascend  Olympus.  This  is  directly  in  opposition  to 
the  Christian  idea,  that  Man's  nature  receives  the 
divinity  through  the  grace  of  God,  cannot  gain  it  for 
itself.  It  leaves  out  the  idea  of  sin  and  defectiveness 
in  man,  which  is,  according  to  the  Christian  thought, 
the  moving  cause  of  God  entering  into  man.  Its  end 
is  the  exaltation  of  man,  the  end  of  Christianity  is 
the  glorification  of  God  in  the  exaltation  of  man. 

Thus,  so  far  as  the  great  typical  religions  of  the 
East  and  West  are  concerned,  the  fountain  idea  of 
Christianity  is  underived,  original  and  distinctive.  At 
the  same  time  we  see  plainly  that  East  and  West  strove 
after  it,  and  that  Christianity  realises  for  the  first  time 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity,  71 

for  them  tliat  wliicli'  they  failed  to  realise  for  them- 
selves, and  realises  it  so  fully  that  it  is  only  by  the 
help  of  this  Christian  idea  that  we  can  understand  the 
true  tendency  and  work  of  the  old  religions. 

It  is  not  then  in  heathenism :  is  it  to  be  found  in 
Hebraism  or  Judaism  ?  In  both  of  these  forms  of  the 
religion  of  the  Jews,  there  is  that  which  heathenism 
wanted — a  clear  idea  of  the  moral  relation  between  God 
and  the  world  ;  but  the  very  clearness  of  this  idea,  as 
it  divided,  in  Hebraism,  the  All-holy  God  from  unholy 
man,  stifled  the  thought  that  there  could  be  such  an 
essential  relation  between  man  and  God  as  would  make 
their  union  possible.  We  can  scarcely  imagine  any 
Hebrew  forming  out  of  his  religion  the  idea  of  Jehovah 
becoming  incarnate  in  man.  There  was  a  great  gulf 
between  man  and  God.  Later  on,  the  wiser  Jews, 
feeling  this  separation  and  its  spiritual  pain,  sought 
to  bridge  over  the  gulf  by  the  ideas  of  a  mediating 
emanation,  or  of  angels  who  linked  the  infinite  God 
to  His  finite  children;  but  the  end  was,  that  these 
somewhat  usurped  the  idea  of  God  without  giving  the 
idea  of  man.  Later  still,  there  arose  the  idea  which 
has  been  now  revived,  that  the  revelation  of  God  to 
man  was  only  a  general  inward  revelation  of  God  to 
the  spirit;  that  the  divine  and  human  were  always 
mingling  in  the  heart  of  every  faithful  and  righteous 
man.  The  latter  part  of  the  statement  holds  a  truth, 
but  the  whole  is  not  the  Christian  idea  :  first,  because 
it  renders  any  incarnation  unnecessary  for  man ;  and 
secondly,  it  denies  the  historical  reality  of  a  perfect 
unity  of  the  nature  of  God  and  Man  in  one  person. 


72  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity. 

According  to  this  last  Jewisli  and  modem  conception, 
portions  of  God's  nature  are  being  ever  united  to  par- 
ticular men.  According  to  the  Christian  conception, 
the  entire  divinity  vras  united  to  universal  Man  in 
Christ.  It  is  not  only  a  communication  of  qualities,  it 
is  a  communication  of  essence.* 

Thus,  the  peculiar  doctrine  of  Christianity  stanas 
alone,  underived,  as  from  heathenism  so  from  Ju- 
daism, but  explaining  both  and  fulfilling  the  wants  of 
both ;  so  that  at  last,  looking  back  from  our  standpoint 
in  Christianity,  we  can  see  that  aU  the  religions  of  the 
world  before  Christianity  were  a  preparation  for  Chris- 
tianity, were  exhausting  all  possible  ideas  that  the  one 
great  idea  might  stand  out  in  lonely  pre-eminence,  and 
yet  take  into  its  loneliness  all  the  isolated  truths,  of 
the  past. 

It  is  not  a  just  theory,  then,  which  says  that  Judaism, 
if  let  alone,  would  have  done  the  work  of  Christianity, 
for  the  main  idea  of  Christianity  was  not  contained  in 
Judaism.  One  might  as  well  say  that  oxygen  and 
hydrogen  in  the  fitting  proportions  would,  if  left  side 
by  side  long  enough,  form  water  in  the  end  without 
the  combining  touch  of  electricity.  Whatever  may  be 
the  value  of  the  work  of  Christianity,  centuries  of 
Judaism  would  not  have  done  it.  Judaism  was  in  fact 
getting  farther  and  farther  away  from  the  possibility 
of  arriving  at  the  central  idea  of  Christianity,  from 
the  working,  impelling,  regenerating  idea  of  a  human 
God. 

*  The  subject  is  more  fully  expanded  in  the  Introduction  to  Corner's 
Christology,  from  which  much  has  here  been  taken. 


The  Caitral  Truth  of  Christianify.  73 

TliG  organic  connection  of  the  lesser  truths  of  Cliris- 
i  Iiinity  with  this  the  greatest,  is  too  great  a  subject  to 
cuter  upon  now.  We  will  close  with  a  restatement  of 
what  we  have  said  as  applied  to  our  personal  lives. 

That  which  Christ  did  for  the  previous  truths  in  the 
world,  He  does  for  us.  We  live,  before  we  believe  on 
Him,  as  possessors  of  isolated  religious  truths.  We  hold 
one  at  one  time  and  another  at  another  time,  till  par- 
ticular truths,  being  over-insisted  on,  grow  monstrous, 
and  the  unity  of  life  is  broken.  We  cannot  concentrate 
our  impulses  to  one  end,  for  they  need  an  inner  bond  of 
thought.  One  idea  contends  with  another  and  usurps 
the  throne  of  another.  They  have  no  wish  to  act 
together.  Now  it  is  obedience  to  the  moral  law  which 
rules  our  conduct,  till  we  drift  into  Pharisaism ;  now  it 
is  the  freedom  of  the  Gospel,  till  we  drift  into  lawless- 
ness. The  truths  we  have  are  excellent,  but  discon- 
nected from  their  brother-truths  they  tend  to  become 
half-truths,  and  their  end  is,  not  uncommonly,  either  to 
die  of  spiritual  starvation,  or  to  be  changed  into  false- 
hoods. Now,  as  Christ  harmonised  and  united  the 
religious  thoughts  of  the  world,  so,  when  He  is  truly 
received,  does  He  bring  the  inner  life  of  the  soul  into 
harmony.  Under  the  reign  of  his  love  no  truth  can 
be  pushed  too  far,  for  a  single  truth  exclusively  dwelt 
on  is  the  parent  of  fanaticism  or  persecution.  As  the 
first  principle  of  his  rule  of  the  physical  world  is  order, 
so  is  it  in  the  spiritual  world  of  our  hearts.  He  allots 
to  each  quality  its  work.  He  brings  the  truths  we 
possess  into  an  ordered  phalanx,  each  one  in  its  place 
and  its  best  place ;  and,  concentrating  these,  He  inspires 


74  l^f^  Central  Truth  of  Christianity, 

them  with  his  spirit,  and  drives  them  in  penetrating 
onset  against  all  the  evil  and  falsehood  in  the  sonl. 

They  act  together,  because,  in  their  centre,  as  the 
king  of  truths,  they  possess  the  knowledge  that  the 
whole  nature  of  Man  is  united  to  God. 

But  here  we  pause.  What  that  truth  does  for  us  as 
life  goes  on,  and  age  and  failure  come ;  what  it  reveals 
when  the  mountain-pass  of  death  is  crossed  amid  the 
freezing  air ;  what  visions  of  a  glory  of  the  Lord  to  be 
revealed  in  Man,  when  the  rose  of  eternity  expands  its 
infinitely  foliaged  cup,  where  every  leaf  is  a  nation  and 
the  stem  which  bears  them  Christ — we  leave  for  the 
present  to  the  future ;  it  is  enough  for  us  to-day,  that 
our  statue  is  complete  in  idea.  "We  have  seen  the  blind 
strivings  of  the  world  accomplished  in  the  Incarnation. 
We  have  seen  the  o'ermastering  attraction  with  which 
Christ  drew  all  truths  into  Himself,  and  concentrated 
in  Himself  their  light,  so  that  indeed  He  rose  upon 
mankind  as  its  universal  sun.  Let  us  part  with  the 
majestic  thought,  let  it  be  our  companion  for  the 
week. 


The  CiUijuL    1  /  luh  Oj  Chi  (.MULiiily.  75 


THE  CENTRAL   TRUTH  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 
*-fVnd  the  Word  waa  made  flesb,  and  dwelt  among  us.' — John  i.  14. 

The  doctrine  which  we  spoke  of  last  Sunday  as  the 
distinctive  doctrine  of  Christianity  was  the  doctrine  of 
a  divine  humanity.  Whatever  else  Christianity  derived 
from  other  religions,  this  at  least  was  underived.  What- 
ever else  was  interwoven  into  the  Christian  web  from 
the  threads  spun  by  Jewish  sage,  or  heathen  philoso- 
pher, this  was  not.  It  was  itself  the  warp  on  which  the 
whole  Christian  woof  was  woven.  Both  Eastern  and 
Western  religions  had  seen  this  truth  of  God  and  Man 
in  one,  floating,  a  nebulous  dream,  before  them,  and  had 
tried  to  resolve  it  into  the  guiding  star  of  their  thought, 
but  their  efforts  closed  in  failure.  The  Oriental,  begin- 
ning with  God  condescending  to  man,  ended,  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  seemed  nearest  to  the  true  con- 
ception, in  a  deification  of  the  universe,  in  Avhich  God 
and  man  were  both  lost.  The  Western,  beginning  with 
man  aspiring  to  God,  found  its  grave  in  the  Alexandrian 
Platonism,  which,  rejecting  the  deified  world  of  the 
Greeks,  ended  in  the  conception  of  one  Divine  substance 
before  which  everything  finite  was  only  phenomenal, 
not  actual.     The  Greek  ended  where  the  Hindoo  began. 


"j^  The  Central  Trtith  of  Christianity. 

The  circle  of  failure  was  complete."^  But  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  true  idea  explained  the  failure,  and  realised 
the  dream.  Christ  came,  and  the  fountain  idea  of  a  true 
union  of  the  Divine  and  Human  broke  upwards  through 
the  mountain-top  of  the  world,  and  streamed  on  all 
sides  down  through  the  radiating  valleys  of  the  nations, 
drawing  into  itself  all  the  local  religious  streams,  and 
developing  from  itself  new  rivers  of  spiritual  ideas. 

Wherever  it  came,  it  fertilised  the  exhausted  plains 
of  human  thought ;  wherever  it  came,  new.  systems  of 
thought  rose  like  stately  cities  on  its  banks  ;  wherever 
it  came,  it  was  the  highway  of  civilisation,  uniting  by 
its  waters  the  fresh  conceptions  of  the  younger  peoples 
to  the  wise  ideas  of  the  older,  till  both  were  bound 
together  in  spiritual  commerce  on  its  stream. 

All  this  has  the  vagueness  of  a  comparison,  but 
there  is  not  a  touch  in  it  for  which  I  have  not  a 
meaning,  for  to  me  all  Christianity,  and  all  the  work 
of  Christianity  can  be  directly  traced  to  one  central 
source,  the  fact  that  in  Christ  Jesus  Humanity  was  re- 
vealed as  divine  and  Divinity  as  human ;  each  side  of 
the  truth  being  equally  important — the  entering  of  God 
into  man,  the  entering  of  man  into  God.  This  doctrine 
I  accept,  and  for  once  I  must  deviate  into  the  first 
person,  not  on  the  authority  of  Church  or  Bible,  but 
because  I  feel  the  necessity  of  it  to  me.  Not  that  I  am 
foolish  enough  to  despise  authority.  The  fact  that  after 
nearly  three  hundred  years  of  intellectual  labour  and 
of  spiritual  feeling  upon  this  subject,  the  present  doc- 

*  See  Dorner's  Christology,  Introduction. 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity.  jj 

trine  emerged  as  a  result  cannot  be  without  force  to 
tliose  who  believe  not  only  in  the  power  of  man  to  work 
out  truth,  but  also  in  the  directing  influence  of  a 
Divine  Spirit  on  the  world.  But  authority  must  be 
kept  in  its  place.  It  is  not  the  edifice,  it  is  the  buttresses 
of  the  edifice.  It  does  not  make  a  doctrine  true  to  you 
or  me,  but  if  we  feel  a  doctrine  to  be  true,  it  is  a  support 
and  strength  to  feeling.  It  is  the  second,  not  the  first. 
Make  it  the  first,  and  you  must  become  the  bigot 
and  the  denouncer  of  all  who  do  not  hold  your  doctrine. 
Make  it  the  second,  and  you  are  freed  from  the  dread- 
ful burden  of  condemning  the  Theist,  and  unchristian- 
ising  the  Unitarian.  We  feel  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Divine  humanity  of  Christ  is  true.  Well,  does  that 
lead  us  to  condemn  the  Theist,  or  the  Unitarian? 
On  the  contrary,  to  sympathise  with  them  to  a  certain 
point,  because  their  essential  elements  are  included  in 
the  doctrine  we  believe.  We  have  reached  it  first 
through  Theism,  then  through  Unitarianism,  and  if  we 
denounce  either,  we  denounce  the  stages  through  which 
we  have  attained  the  higher  form.  Theism  is  true,  but 
there  is  a  higher  truth.  To  believe  in  it  now  as  the 
whole  of  truth  appears  to  us  to  be  an  anachronism. 
To  hold  what  it  asserts  as  a  part  of  truth  appears  to  us 
to  be  a  necessity.  Unitarianism  has  a  higher  truth 
than  Theism.  Listen  to  this  passage:  'Not  more 
clearly  does  the  worship  of  the  saintly  soul,  breathing 
through  its  window  opened  to  the  midnight,  betray  the 
secrets  of  its  affections,  than  the  mind  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  reveals  the  perfect  thought  and  inmost  love 
of  the  AU-ruling  God.     Were  he  the  only  bom  —the 


78  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity. 

solitary  self-revelation — of  tlie  creative  spirit,  lie  could 
not  more  purely  open  the  mind  of  heaven ;  being  the 
very  Logos — the  apprehensible  nature  of  God — which, 
long  unuttered  to  the  world,  and  abiding  in  the  be- 
ginning with  Him,  has  now  come  forth  and  dwelt  among 
us,  full  of  grace  and  truth.' ■^'  The  .line  which  divides 
that  statement  from  the  highest  truth  we  accept  of 
Christ's  nature  is  very.  thin.  We  accept  the  statement, 
but,  we  pass  beyond  it  to  a  higher  conception  which 
includes  it.  Hence  I,  for  one,  cannot  condemn  either 
Theist  or  Unitarian,  without  condemning  a  portion  of 
my  own  belief. 

But  what  proof  is  there  that  the  doctrine  of  which 
you  speak  is  the  highest?  demands  the  Theist.  No 
j)roof  amounting  to  demonstration,  I  answer.  But  the 
want  of  the  power  of  demonstrating  the  truth  to  others 
is  not  peculiar  to  us.  Can  the  Theist  demonstrate  the 
existence  of  God  ?  can  the  Unitarian,  immortality  ?  No  ! 
no  more  than  I  can  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation.  We 
are  all,  as  persons,  thrown  upon  the  witness  in  our  own 
hearts.  We  can  only  see  that  which  we  have  light  to 
see. 

But  we  can  approach  a  decision  as  to  which  doctrine 
is  the  highest  by  putting  certain  questions.  On  which 
theory  is  the  relation  of  man  to  God,  and  of  God  to  man, 
most  clearly  and  most  nobly  explained  ?  Which  theory 
explains  the  greatest  number  of  the  facts  and  feelings 
and  problems  of  the  spiritual  world?  From  which 
theory  follows  most  easily  and  most  consistently  the 

*  Endeavours  after  the  Christian  Life,  vol.  ii.  p.  349.  By  James  Martineau. 


Tlie  Central  Truth  of  Christianity.         79 

great  religious  ideas  common  to  us  all — the  Father- 
hood of  God,  the  universal  brotherhood  of  the  race,  the 
progress  of  man  through  evil  to  final  good.  Which 
theory  has  the  greatest  number  of  analogies  to  the 
ideas  of  the  revelation  of  God  in  science  P 

On  some  of  these  points  I  have  already  spoken ;  we 
choose  only  one  to-day — the  natural  development  of  the 
great  religious  ideas  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarna- 
tion. 

But  first,  with  regard  to  the  doctrine  itself,  and  the 
place  which  has  been  given  it.  I  said  that  it  included 
the  truths  taught  by  the  Theist  and  the  Unitarian. 

The  Theist  will  reply,  It  does  not  include  my  truth ; 
it  denies  it  by  the  addition  of  an  untruth.  I  say  that 
God  is  One ;  you  say  that  the  One  God  is  Three. 

It  is  scarcely  a  fair  way  of  putting  it,  for  we  go  on  to 
«ay  that  the  Three  are  One.  In  terms,  at  least,  we 
aver  the  unity  of  God.  Our  term  '  the  three  persons ' 
does  not  mean  three  distinct  and  separate  beings,  but 
three  modes  of  being  in  one  primal  Being.  We  assert, 
that  is,  a  complexity  of  being  in  God,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  the  assertion  of  a  unity  which  seems  to  us  an 
assertion  of  uniformity  of  being,  not  of  unity  of  being. 

Now  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  more  complex  a 
nature  is,  the  higher  it  is  ;  and  the  more  uniform  it  is, 
the  lower  it  is ;  and  therefore  any  conception  of  God 
which  represents  His  being  as  complex,  is  higher  than 
one  which  represents  His  being  as  uniform.  I  cannot 
hold  the  old  Hebrew,  or  the  theistic  conception  of  God, 
without  feeling  that  I  am  far  behind  the  vanward  of 
thought,  in  that  position  into  which  a  people  emerging 


8o  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity, 

from  lieathenism  would  naturally  enter,  as,  for  example, 
the  Hindoo  youth,  are  doing  now.  My  conception  of  a 
true  unity  of  being,  unless  the  teaching  of  science 
and  of  the  higher  national  politics  is  useless  to  me, 
must  include  complexity  of  being.  This  is  the  truth 
which  lay  hidden  in,  and  gave  life  to,  the  errors  of 
Polytheism ;  and  instead  of  throwing  away  the  whole 
of  Polytheism  as  abominable,  I  take  the  root  idea  of 
it  and  say,  the  Being  of  God  is  multiform  in  its  oneness. 
I  see  in  Polytheism  the  unconscious  striving  of  the 
human  mind  after  a  higher  idea  of  God  than  that  of  the 
Theist.  It  failed,  it  developed  error  after  error,  but  it 
was  not  useless ;  it  prepared  the  world  to  receive  the 
truth  which  explained  and  realised  its  striving — the 
truth  of  the  Trinity  in  Unity. 

He  is  at  least  on  the  threshold  only  of  metaphysical 
thought  who  says  that  a  truth  which  asserts  a  three- 
fold or  fourfold  Being  in  God  denies  His  unity  of  Being. 
Suppose  that  the  one  constant  force  of  the  physical 
universe  were  a  living  Person.  Should  I  deny  his  unity 
of  Being  because  I  said,  he  is  the  force  electricity, 
he  is  the  force  magnetism,  &c. ;  and  yet  he  is  Force 
alone;  he  is  one  and  he  is  twenty;  he  is  twenty* in 
one  and  one  in  twenty  P  I  do  not  deny  unity  of  Being 
in  this  case  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  make  it  more  rational,  I 
clothe  it  in  higher  thought  when  I  maintain  its  com- 
plexity. 

Again,  it  is  said  that  the  Incarnation  is  an  idea 
degrading  to  God. 

Surely  there  may  be  another  aspect  of  the  question. 
Is  it  apart  from  a  noble  conception  of  God  that  He 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity.  8 1 

should  desire  to  partake  of  the  lives  of  His  creatures 
for  the  loving  purpose  of  comprehending  thein  more 
perfectly  ? 

But  it  is  replied,  that  God  without  that  does  com- 
prehend us  perfectly  in  Himself?  In  thought,  yes,  but 
in  experience,  no.  Grod  is  impassible,  absolute,  infinite. 
How  is  He,  with  all  His  love,  to  comprehend  in  Himself 
a  life  like  ours,  which  is  relative,  full  of  suffering,  and 
finite  ?  This  was  the  religious  difficulty  of  the  ancient 
world.  We  saw  last  Sunday  how  they  strove  to  solve 
it  by  endeavouring  to  bring  God  and  man  into  unity. 
They  failed  to  do  it,  but  they  felt  that  it  was  necessary. 

There  seems  thus  an  intellectual  necessity  for  the 
Incarnation.  Moreover,  instead  of  jarring  against  our 
idea  of  God,  the  Incarnation  seems  not  only  natural, 
but  delightful  to  conceive.  How  often  have  we  our- 
selves, when  affection  for  the  lower  creation  has  been 
kindled  in  us,  desired  in  idea  to  enter  into  their  life 
for  a  time,  and  then  to  return  into  ourselves  again 
with  a  new  consciousness  of  a  lower  life  than  our  own, 
and  with  increased  ability  and  desire  to  help.  And  if 
we  have  felt  this  towards  a  nature  not  kindred  to  our 
own,  how  much  more  may  God  have  felt  it  towards  a 
nature  in  direct  kinship  with  Himself? 

It  is  a  noble  thought :  it  ought  to  commend  itself  to 
all  who  have  ever  loved  purely  and  passionately,  and 
desired  to  become  at  one  with  the  being  of  those  they 
loved. 

I  feel  that  God  desires  to  be  born  into  the  being  of 
all  the  intelligent  creatures  that  He  has  made,  and 
I  ask,  with  reverence,  how  do  we  know  that  He  has  not 


82  The  Ce7itral  Truth  of  Christianity. 

incarnated  Himself  in  other  beings  tlian  in  Man  ?  If 
other  intelligent  and  spiritual,  but  defective  beings, 
live  elsewhere  in  the  universe,  it  may  be  that  the  In- 
carnation on  our  earth  is  not  an  isolated  fact ;  it  may 
be  that  in  His  manifold  unity  there  may  be  many 
creature-consciousnesses.  Trinity  in  unity  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  eternal  nature  of  the  Being  of  Gcd  in 
its  relation  to  us.  But  the  Being  of  God  may  bo 
infinitely  more  complex  than  that.  We  may  learn  here- 
after that  our  phrase  is  but  a  poor  ex23ression  of  the 
thousand  modes  of  Being  in  the  unity  of  God,  that  the 
Incarnation  has  many  analogies  in  the  universe. 

It  does  not  seem  irreverent  to  make  these  specula- 
tions. Irreverence  exists  in  the  intention,  and  the  in- 
tention here  is  to  exult  and  not  to  lower  our  idea  of 
the  nature  of  God. 

But  what  we  have  to  do  with  is  this — the  idea  of  the 
union  of  God  and  man  as  the  central  truth  of  the 
highest  religion.  We  dwelt  last  Sunday  on  its  unique- 
ness, we  have  suggested  to-day  its  naturalness ;  we 
proceed  to  show  how  easily  there  flows  from  it  the  three 
great  religious  ideas  of  the  world. 

And  first,  the  idea  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  Ac- 
cording to  our  doctrine,  God,  in  Christ,  has  taken  all 
mankind  into  Himself  as  a  dependent  part  of  His 
Being.  That  is  the  idea,  and  it  depends  on  this — that 
Christ,  in  our  belief,  was  not  only  a  man  but  Man — 
the  realisation  in  one  Person  of  the  whole  idea  which 
God  had  of  Man,  so  that  while  He  represents  us  each 
to  ourselves  as  we  ought  to  be.  He  also  represents  and 
has  taken  the  whole  of  the  race  into  God.    In  God, 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity.  Z^ 

therefore,  there  is  now  the  perfect  Man,  real  to  Him, 
ideal  to  us.  Man  in  the  eternal  and  actual  world  is 
one  and  eternal;  but  on  earth  and  in  time  he  is  im- 
perfect, and  divided  into  many  men  in  different  stages 
of  development.  These  several  parts  of  the  great 
whole  which  is  to  be,  must,  if  our  doctrine  be  true, 
be  brought  up  to  the  level  of  the  ideal  Man  which 
exists  in  God.  God  is  bound  to  them  in  thought  as 
Ho  is  bound  to  His  own  nature;  and  as  He  is  a 
Person,  and  they  are  persons,  that  binding  relation 
is  a  personal  relation,  the  relation  of  a  loving  Thinker 
to  the  thing  thought,  the  relation  of  a  loving  Creator 
to  the  thing  created.  A  relation,  therefore,  of  edu- 
cation, of  infinite  care  and  pity,  of  redemption ;  the 
relation  of  a  Father  to  an  erring  child,  who,  seen  as 
what  he  will  be,  not  as  what  he  is,  is  not  looked  upon 
by  God  as  outside  Himself,  but  felt,  since  he  has  been 
united  to  all  men  in  Christ,  as  a  part  of  Himself.  This 
conception  makes  the  Fatherhood  of  God  a  glorious 
reality ;  makes  all  the  duties  which  belong  to  Father- 
hood imperative  upon  God  by  His  loving  act  of  Incar- 
nation. 

But  since  God  has  been  united  in  Christ — not  to  a  few, 
but  to  the  whole  of  the  humah  race — this  Fatherhood 
is  necessarily  universal.  All  doctrines  of  favouritism 
are  at  once  expelled  by  this ;  all  despair  of  races  is  at 
once  destroyed;  all  hopelessness  for  those  who  suffer, 
and  those  who  are  evil,  perishes ;  all  contempt  of  our 
brother-men  is  no  more,  for  all  men  are  divine  in  God 
since  they  have  been  in  Christ. 

Then  comes  a  crowd  of  other  religious  ideas  derived 


84  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity. 

as  naturallj  from  this  as  rivers  from  a  fountain.  For 
there  follows,  if  the  same  belief  be  true,  the  necessary 
immoi-tality  of  all  mankind.  Men  are  not  becoming 
immortal ;  they  are,  since  all  mankind  has  been  united 
to  God,  immortal  now.  Death,  annihilation,  must  touch 
God  Himself  ere  it  can  touch  the  meanest  human  soul, 
for  all  the  race  is  hid  in  Christ,  and  Christ  is  hid  in 
God. 

So,  also,  the  dreadful  dream  that  anyone  can  be  for 
ever  exiled  from  God  and  buried  in  ever-enduring  evil 
passes  away  and  ceases  to  sit  as  a  nightmare  on  the 
bosom  of  religion.  Tor  if  all  men  are  in  idea,  and  by 
right  of  Christ,  contained  in  God,  all  men  are  in  idea 
and  by  right  holy.  Do  you  think  that  God  will  fall 
short  of  His  own  conception  ?  do  you  think  that  having 
once  seen  the  whole  race  as  separate  from  sin  in 
Christ,  He  can  for  one  moment  endure  the  thought  that 
any  one  man  or  woman  should  be  left  for  ever  to  the 
horrible  embrace  of  evil  ?  That  men  should  contend 
with  evil  we  can  understand,  that  they  should  suffer 
we  can  bear,  that  they  should  wander  far  from  their 
Father's  house  and  waste  their  immortal  substance  we 
can  endure,  for  they  are  then  treated  as  free  subjects 
who  must  develope  by  eftbrt  and  through  failure ;  but 
that  all  this  should  be  done  without  an  end  except  a 
cruel  end,  that  all  the  pains  God  takes  with  us  (and 
surely  if  anything  is  plain  to  the  worst  of  us,  that 
is)  should  be  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void;  that  He 
should  have  descended  to  assume  the  nature  of  all  men, 
and  made  it  divine  in  Himself,  only  to  cast  away  as 
refuse  to  be  burned  the  greater  part  of  those  whom 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity.  85 

lie  had  made  liolj  in  Himself — all  this  does  now  so 
contradict  and  vilify  His  revelation,  that  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  idea  of  everlasting  damnation  should 
have  destroyed  men's  belief  in  the  idea  of  the  Incar- 
nation. He  who  believes  the  one  cannot  rationally, 
though  he  may  blindly,  believe  in  the  other.  No; 
the  Incarnation,  rightly  conceived,  necessitates  the 
final  righteousness,  godlikeness  of  all.  How  long  the 
mailing  righteous  may  endure, none  can  tell;  but  through 
sphere  after  sphere  of  just  retribution,  through  the 
change  of  the  outward  sensuality  of  earth  into  inward 
suffering,  through  the  change  of  the  miserable  circum- 
stances of  earth  into  happy  circumstances — for  I  often 
think  that  what  many  a  poor  criminal  wants  to  make 
him  right  is  not  punishment  so  much  as  comfort — step 
by  step,  age  after  age,  in  world  after  world  perhaps, 
all  the  past  dead  are  moving  on,  all  the  future  dead  will 
move  on,  a  mighty  stream,  to  mingle  in  the  ocean  of 
the  righteousness  of  God  on  that  far-off  but  certain 
day  when  the  idea  of  the  Incarnation  of  God  in  the 
essential  Man  wQl  be  completely  realised — that  hour 
to  which  the  Apostle,  in  a  lofty  flight  of  inspiration, 
looked  forward  when  he  said,  '  And  when  all  things 
shall  be  subdued  unto  Him,  *then  shall  tKe  Son  also 
Himself  be  subject  unto  Him  that  put  all  things  under 
Him,  that  God  may  be  all  in  all.' 

On  the  last  of  the  great  religious  conceptions  which 
follow  inflexibly  from  the  fact  of  God  in  Man  —  the 
conception  of  an  equal  and  universal  brotherhood  of 
the  race — I  have  often  dwelt  from  this  place.  It  is 
sufiicient  to  say  now  that  its  practical  results  are  as 


86  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity, 

important  as  they  are  many.  It  is  tlie  foundation  of  all 
effort  to  civilise  barbarian  peoples ;  it  is  the  root  and  end 
of  all  noble  legislation,  of  all  just  government.  It  is  the 
inspiring  impulse  of  the  theorj^  and  practice  of  national 
education ;  it  is  the  mainspring  of  all  charity ;  it  is  the 
fountain  from  which  flow  all  redemptive  measures  for  the 
outcast  and  the  criminal ;  it  is  the  principle  on  which 
all  the  relations  of  capital  and  labour  should  be  based  ; 
it  is  the  idea  which  overthrows  all  tyrannies,  all  oppres- 
sion, all  slavery^  all  exclusive  castes,  all  class  domina- 
tion, all  attempts  to  concentrate  all  the  land  and  all 
the  money  of  a  country  in  the  hands  of  a  few.  It  has 
been  the  war-cry  and  the  watchword  of  all  noble  revo- 
lution. It  is  leading  the  peoples  of  the  world,  slowly 
but  surely,  to  a  political  future  of  equality,  for  religious 
conceptions  are  naturally  and  necessarily  transferred  to 
political ;  it  is  leading  the  various  nations  of  the  world 
to  a  far-off  international  union,  on  a  higher  ground  than 
that  of  commercial  interest.  It  will  finally  end  in  the 
destruction  of  all  international  and  individual  envying, 
strife,  vainglorying,  and  trickery  to  get  the  upper  hand  ; 
and  in  the  establishment  of  a  unity  of  mankind  in 
which  all  shall  be  equal,  free,  and  fraternal,  and  yet  all 
diverse  and  individual,  so  that  the  unity  of  the  human 
race  in  some  sort,  like  the  unity  of  God,  will  exist  in 
the  midst,  and  because  of  an  infinite  manifoldness. 

Lastly,  these  three  great  Christian  ideas  of  the  Father- 
hood of  God,  the  progress  of  the  race  towards  final 
good,  and  the  brotherhood  of  all  men,  are,  like  the  idea 
out  of  which  they  are  born,  underived  from  any  other 
teaching,  and  original  to  Christianity.     IS'o  Eastern  or 


The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity.  Sy 

Western  religion taiiglit  them,  no  Jewish  sages  conceivecl 
them  in  an^i^hing  like  a  practical  form,  in  anything  like 
their  full  extent.  We  find  as  it  were  filmy  phantoms  of 
them  here  and  there,  we  do  not  find  their  substance* 
Christ  sent  them  forth  to  run  as  living  fire  through  the 
^vorld,  and  their  life  is  derived  from  the  fact  of  the 
union  in  Him  of  God  and  Man. 

It  is  no  answer  to  say  that  they  have  been  shamefully 
misrepresented,  practically  denied  by  Christians  in  the 
history  of  the  Christian  Church ;  that  they  have  often 
found  their  exponents  in  men  called  infidels  and  atheists. 
AVhoever  used  them,  Christ  gave  them ;  and  they  lead 
the  world.  Nor  can  we  charge  upon  Christianity  their 
slow  advance,  their  comparative  failure  as  yet  to  accom- 
plish their  work,  their  caricatures.  Great  ideas  are 
slow  of  fulfilment ;  great  ideas  are  especially  liable  to 
caricature,  great  ideas  are  subject  to  great  failures  on 
their  way  to  victory,  and  all  in  proportion  to  their 
gi-eatness. 

We  may  expect  their  slow  development.  '  The  Lord 
our  God  is  one  Lord.'  How  long  did  the  Jewish  people 
take  to  learn  that  ?  Nearly  a  thousand  years.  One  of 
the  first  things  we  have  to  learn,  if  our  judgment  of  the 
progress  of  the  race  is  ever  to  be  just,  is  that  Chris- 
tianity, and  mankind  with  it,  must  move  forward  into 
fulness  of  truth  almost  as  slowly  as  the  earth  into  fitness 
for  man. 

We  may  expect  that  monstrous  caricatures  will  be 
made  out  of  them  by  men  insisting  on  portions  of 
them  torn  away  from  their  whole;  we  may  expect 
that  they  will  be  made  the  ministers  of  the  exclusive- 


88  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity. 

ness  and  intolerance  they  came  to  destroy ;  we  may 
expect  that  they  will  be  driven  into  extremes ;  but 
instead  of  crying  out  failure  on  Christianity,  we  should 
realise  that  these  things  are  natural,  that  ideas  when 
first  sown,  or  when  firat  reclothed  in  new  forms,  are 
almost  always  carried  beyond  their  golden  mean  by  the 
excitement  which  they  create ;  that  it  seems  to  be  a  law 
that  before  ideas  are  clearly  seen  as  they  are,  men  must 
exhaust  all  their  possible  excesses  and  defects,  must 
experience  all  their  wrong  forms  before  they  can  grasp 
their  essence. 

Such  at  least  has  been,  and  often  will  be  in  the  future, 
the  fate  of  the  Christian  ideas.  But  they  still  endure, 
rising  out  of  all  error  and  mistake,  like  Alpine  summits 
after  tempest,  pure,  and  clean,  and  fair.  They  still  live 
under  a  thousand  forms,  the  elements  of  life  and  move- 
ment in  mankind — the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  progress 
of  man  through  evil  to  eternal  good,  the  brotherhood  of 
the  race.  These  are  the  leading  rays  which  stream  from 
the  Sun  of  Christianity — the  idea  of  the  union  of  Man- 
hood and  Godhead  in  Christ. 


TJie  Beauty  of  Christ's  Cfiaractcr.  89 


TRE  BEAUTY  OF  CHRIST S  CHARACTEIi. 
'Thine  eyes  shall  see  the  King  in  his  beauty.' — Isaiah  xxxiii.  17. 

Within  the  last  ten  years,  the  human  nature  of  Christ 
has  been  brought  prominently  forward  in  England. 
This  has  been  due  partly  to  the  more  direct  historical 
interest  awakened  in  his  life  by  a  book  like  that  of 
Strauss,  partly  to  various  foreign  studies  of  his  life 
from  the  merely  biographical  point  of  view ;  partly  to 
the  influence  of  Unitarians  like  Channing  on  our 
Church,  and  partly  to  that  of  some  of  our  own  teachers. 
A  great  deal  has  been  done  to  present  Him  more 
vividly  and  more  historically  before  us,  but  we  cannot 
say  that  enough  has  been  done.  There  have  been  but 
few  attempts  to  trace  in  Him  those  subtile  shades  of 
feeling,  those  finer  touches  of  intellectual  and  poetic 
sentiment,  which,  after  all,  make  a  man  real  to  us.  It 
is  on  these  I  propose  to  dwell  for  some  Sundays  :  less 
on  the  moral  majesty,  and  more  on  the  exquisiteness  of 
his  character ;  less  on  the  suffering  lover  of  man,  and 
more  on  the  King  in  his  beauty.  So  doing,  we  may 
add  something  to  our  conception  of  his  individuality. 
For  when  men  tell  us  of  his  life,  and  describe  his  death, 
and  dwell  upon  his  love.  He  remains  still  a  vague  outline 
5 


90  TIu  Beauty  of  Chris fs  Character. 

to  many  of  us  ;  but  wlien  He  stops  by  the  wayside  and 
the  women  cluster  round  Him,  and  He  stoops  to  lay 
his  hand  on  the  children's  heads  and  claim  them  for  his 
own  and  for  his  kingdom ;  or  when,  resting  by  the  well, 
He  wakes  the  uncultured  woman's  interest  by  half- 
mysterious  sayings,  tinged  with  something  of  the  So- 
cratic  irony,  but  with  greater  solemnity  and  profounder 
meaning  than  that  of  the  Sage  of  Athens — then  his 
personality  begins  to  shape  itself  within  us.  We  recog- 
nise the  uniqueness  which  belongs  to  a  living  character. 
It  is  by  dwelling  on  these  things,  and  by  an  analysis  of 
character  based  upon  them,  that  we  may  arrive  at  a 
deeper,  as  well  as  a  more  critical,  knowledge  of  the 
intense  and  universal  character  of  his  Human  Nature. 

In  mediaeval  times  this  humanisation  of  Christ  for 
men  was  done  by  art.  The  exquisite  simplicity  and 
naturalness  of  frescoes,  such  as  those  in  the  Arena 
Chapel,  brought  Christ  and  his  life  home  to  men's 
minds.  But  though  natural,  these  representations  did 
not  dwell  enough  on  the  distinctly  human  traits  in  his 
life.  Series  like  Giotto's  were  connected  with  doctrine, 
and  so  far,  removed  from  simple  humanity.  They  grew 
still  more  doctrinal  afterwards,  till,  from  step  to  step  of 
idealisation,  the  Manhood  of  Christ  grew  fainter  and 
fainter  in  art,  and  He  became  only  Divine  and  clothed 
with  the  terrors  of  Divinity. 

But  in  the  thirteenth  century,  also,  the  Dominicans 
and  Franciscans  seized  on  the  Passion  of  Christ  as  the 
special  object  of  religious  emotion  in  his  life,  and  taking 
that  piece  of  his  Manhood  out  of  the  rest,  concentrated 
men's  minds  on  it  alone.     Art  at  once  began  to  supply 


Tlu  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.  9 1 

the  religious  demand  for  representations  of  the  days  of 
the  Passion,  and  the  people,  tanght  iis  much  by  the 
paintings  as  by  the  preachers,  saw  the  Manhood  of 
Christ  only  as  a  suffering  manhood.  The  rest  of  his 
human  life  passed  into  all  but  absolute  extinction  in 
the  intense  light  which  was  thrown  upon  the  Passion. 
Later  on,  the  natural  conclusion  followed  upon  this 
isolation  of  one  part  of  Christ's  human  life  in  art.  He 
became  only  a  fine  head  or  a  noble  figure  in  the  centre 
of  a  picture.  He  was  painted  only  as  a  good  subject 
aroimd  which  artists  could  throw  a  poetical  or  aesthetic 
air.  All  awe,  all  faith,  all  sublimity,  all  touch  of  what 
was  Divine  in  Him  passed  away  when  the  last  trace  of 
his  pure  and  natural  Manhood  was  lost  in  art.  For 
they  go  together. 

There  are  many  curious  analogies  in  theology  to  this 
limitation  in  art  of  the  idea  of  Christ's  Manhood.  I 
Avill  only  dwell  upon  a  few.  After  the  reformation,  and 
almost  up  to  the  present  day,  Christ,  as  a  man>  has 
been  continually  more  and  more  hidden  from  us  by  the 
accumulation  of  theological  doctrines  round  Him.  Our 
theologians  have,  Hke  the  artists,  taken  Him  farther 
and  farther  from  earth,  and  isolated  Him  in  his  divinity 
in  heaven.^  We  had  no  Virgin  to  fall  back  upon,  and 
the  result  was  that  English  Christianity  was  severed 
more  and  more  from  natural  human  life  ;  and  I  do  not 
know  what  might  have  happened  had  it  not  been  for 
the. ceaseless  protest  of  the  Unitarians,  which  rose  at 
last  into  the  spiritual  beauty  of  the  figure  of  Christ  as 
presented  to  us  by  Channing. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  analogy.     As  art,  by  insisting 


92  The  BeaiUy  of  Christ's  Character. 

only  on  tlie  Passion,  put  out  of  sight  the  rest  of 
Christ's  life,  and  produced  a  maimed  representation  of 
his  humanity,  so  did,  and  so  do  those  theologians, 
whether  Evangelical  or  Anglican,  who  dwell  too  exclu- 
sively on  the  atonement,  the  death,  and  the  sacrifice  of 
the  Passion.  The  result  was  and  is,  that  Christianity  has 
been  so  much  made  into  a  religion  of  suffering,  endu- 
rance, sacrifice,  and  asceticism,  that  all  that  side  of 
human  life  which  has  to  do  with  healthy,  natural  joy, 
with  love  of  beauty,  with  what  is  called  profane  poetry 
and  art,  with  delight  in  natural  scenery,  with  social 
companionship,  has  been,  to  a  large  extent,  left  un- 
christianised,  relegated  to  the  realm  of  the  irreligious. 

The  result  of  both  these  tendencies  is  similar  to  that 
which  followed  in  arfc,  and  is  seen  in  the  way  in  which 
the  '  Life  of  Jesus '  by  Renan  was  taken  up  in  England. 
In  a  certain  sense,  that  book  brought  back  to  reality 
the  human  life  of  Christ,  but  it  was  only  as  a  good  sub- 
ject for  a  piece  of  artistic  work  ;  He  was  surrounded  by 
all  the  faded  feebleness  of  Arcadian  sentiment ;  He  was 
the  human  figure  which  enlivened  pictorial  descriptions 
of  Palestine;  his  character  was  made  to  lose,  in  the 
midst  of  a  detestable  sentiment alism,  all  moral  sub- 
limity. 

Let  me  pursue  the  analogy  one  step  further.  Among 
all  the  artists  who  represented  Christ's  life,  one  stands 
alone  for  his  unique,  unconventional,  and  manifold 
treatment  of  it  and  its  subject.  Others  have  repre- 
sented Him  in  the  common  humanities  of  his  life,  but 
they  have  lacked  the  power  to  give  with  equal  grandeur 
the  awful  moments  in  which  his  mission  was  concen- 


The  Bcaiify  of  Christ's  Character.  93 

trated.  Others  have  represented  Him  ideally  and  with 
sublimity,  but  they  have  not  been  able  to  touch  such 
subjects  as  the  Supper  at  Cana  without  either  makinj^ 
it  too  ideal  or  too  vulgar.  One  man  alone  has  mingled, 
and  without  a  trace  of  effort,  and  with  a  profound  con- 
ception at  the  root  of  his  work,  the  heavenly  with  the 
earthly,  the  divine  with  the  human,  the  common  with 
the  wonderful,  the  poetical  with  the  prose  of  daily  life, 
in  his  representation  of  the  human  existence  of  Christ. 
That  man  was  Tintoret.  In  his' '  Last  Supper,'  for  ex- 
ample, it  is  a  common  room  iu  which  the  Apostles  and 
the  Master  meet.  Servants  hurry  to  and  fro ;  the  evening 
has  fallen  dark,  and  the  lamps  are  lit;  those  who  eat 
the  meal  are  really  fishermen  and  unlearned  men ;  here 
and  there  there  are  incidents  which  prove  that  the 
artist  wished  to  make  us  feel  that  it  was  just  such  a 
meal  as  was  eaten  that  night  by  everyone  else  in  Jeru- 
salem.    We  are  in  the  midst  of  common  human  life. 

But,  the  upper  air  of  the  chamber  is  filled  with  a  drift 
of  cherubim,  and  the  haze  of  the  lamp-light  takes  that 
azure  tint  with  which  the  artist  afterwards  filled  the 
recesses  of  the  '  Paradise,'  and  the  whole  soft  radiance 
of  the  light  falls  on  and  envelopes  the  upright  figure  of 
Christ,  worn  and  beautiful,  and  bending  down  to  offer 
to  one  of  his  disciples  the  broken  bread.  It  is  common 
human  life  filled  with  the  Divine.  It  is  the  conception 
of  Christ's  personality  which  modern  theology  ought  to 
possess,  because  it  ought  to  be  the  ideal  of  our  own 
life. 

Nor  at  the  right  time  is  sublimity  and  awfulness 
wanted  in  Tintoret's  conception  of  Christ's  humanity. 


94  ^-^^  Beauty  of  Christ'' s  Character. 

We  pass  in  his  work  from  the  lonely  majesty  of  the 
temptation  in  the  wilderness  to  the  -unapproachable 
agony  and  solemnity  of  the  burdened  head,  bowed  with 
the  sorrow  of  the  whole  world,  of  the  Christ  of  the  Cru- 
cifixion, and  from  thence  to  the  high  sovereignty,  yet 
homelike  tenderness,  of  the  Christ  of  the  ^  Paradise,'  and 
we  know  as  we  realise  the  painter's  idea  that  we  look 
on  one  in  whom  the  human  nature  of  the  whole  race 
has  realised  that  divine  glory  of  self-surrender  for 
mankind  and  conquest  of  evil  which  demands  of  our 
hearts  the  deepest  love  restrained  by  the  deepest  awe. 

But  when  we  pass  to  pictures  of  Tintoret  which  repre- 
sent the  senators  and  merchants  of  Venice  presented 
to  Christ,  we  do  not  find  the  Saviour  as  the  unapproach- 
able Divinity,  but  as  the  friend  and  lover  of  man.  He 
comes  down  through  the  air  with  expanded  arms  and 
joyous  welcome,  not  to  judge  or  to  rebuke,  but  to  live 
among  his  servants,  his  face  full  of  delightful  human 
feeling,  rejoicing  that  He  can  in  entire  sympathy  take 
a  share  in  their  daily  work,  and  bless  their  common 
life. 

This  mingled  conception  of  divine  majesty  and  human 
friendliness,  of  heavenly  power  and  earthly  homefulness, 
is  the  conception  of  Christ's  humanity  which  we  want 
to  arrive  at  now,  and  we  are  drawing  towards  it  day  by 
day.  One  step  was  made  towards  it  by  the  work  of  one 
whose  honoured  age  is  still  with  us  when  he  instilled  into 
the  whole  of  modern  theology  the  thought  of  Christ  as 
the  federal  Head  of  mankind,  as  being  Himself  the  con- 
tainer of  mankind,  as  the  incarnation  of  the  humanity 
which  has  for  ever  been  in  God.     That  idea  secured 


The  Bcatiiy  of  Christ's  Character,  95 

for  the  man  Christ  Jesus,  and  secured  for  ever,  our  wor- 
ship and  our  awe.  It  separated  Him  from  the  race  as 
king ;  it  bound  Him  up  with  the  race  as  brother ;  it 
made  mankind  live  and  move  and  breathe  in  God. 

But  more  was  wanted,  and  is  wanted.  We  want  a 
Christ  entirely  one  with  all  that  is  joyous,  pure, 
healthy,  sensitive,  aspiring,  and  even  what  seems  to  us 
commonplace  in  daily  life ;  we  desire  Him,  while  Ho 
is  still  our  Eang,  to  be  also  '  not  too  bright  and  good 
for  human  nature's  daily  food,'  for  business  and  for 
home ;  we  wish  Him  to  share  in  our  anxieties  about  our 
children ;  to  come  and  hallow  our  early  love,  and  bless 
with  a  further  nobleness  all  its  passion  ;  to  move  us  to 
quietude  and  hope  within  the  temple  of  the  past  where 
our  old  age  wanders  and  meditates  ;  to  be  with  us  when 
our  heart  swells  with  the  beauty  of  the  world,  and  to  give 
his  sympathy  to  us  in  that  peculiar  passion  ;  to  whisper 
of  aspiration  in  our  depression,  of  calm  in  our  excitement, 
to  be,  in  fine,  a  universal  friendly  presence  in  the  whole 
of  our  common  life. 

I  believe  that  out  of  that  will  spring  no  diminution  of 
reverence  to  Him,  no  unhappy  familiarity,  but  rather 
that  deepening  of  awe,  that  solemnity  of  love  which  arise 
towards  One  whom  we  have  lived  with  daily,  and  never 
known  to  fail  in  the  power — sweetest  of  all,  in  a  world 
where  so  much  seems  mean  and  commonplace  —  of 
lifting  the  prosaic  into  the  poetic  by  the  spirit  of  love, 
of  giving  us  the  sense  of  greatness  in  things  which  seem 
the  smallest,  of  making  life  delightful  with  the  feeling 
that  we  are  being  educated  through  its  slightest  details 
into  children  of  the  Divine  Holiness. 


96  The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character, 

If  in  the  rest  of  this  sermon  and  for  some  Sundays  to 
come  we  can  reverently  enter  into  the  finer  shades  of 
the  human  character  of  Christ,  we  shall  gain — I  trust 
without  losing  the  awe  which  belongs  to  Him  as  Divine 
— a  deeper  sense  of  his  union  with  our  nature  mingled 
with  a  love  to  Him  at  once  more  delicate  and  home- 
Hke. 

I  speak,  then,  of  the  beauty  of  Christ's  character  as 
my  main  subject ;  and  for  the  rest  of  this  morning's  work 
only  of  one  element  in  it — of  his  sensibility ;  a  word  I 
prefer  to  sensitiveness,  for  it  includes  sensitiveness. 
Sensitiveness  is  the  power  of  receiving  impressions, 
whether  from  nature  or  man,  vividly,  intensely,  and  yet 
delicately.  Sensibility  is  this  passive  quality  of  sensi- 
tiveness with  activity  of  soul  in  addition  exercised 
upon  the  impressions  received.  The  more  perfect  the 
manhood,  the  more  perfect  is  this  sensibility.  The  pos- 
session of  it  in  a  high  degree  is  the  chief  source  of 
beauty  of  character  as  distinguished  from  greatness  of 
character ;  and  yet  without  it  no  character  can  reach 
the  highest  greatness.  The  total  absence  of  it  is  the 
essence,  the  inmost  essence,  of  vulgarity.  The  presence 
of  it  in  its  several  degrees  endows  its  possessor,  accord- 
ing to  the  proportion  of  it,  with  what  Chaucer  meant 
by  '  gentilness.'  Now,  when  we  talk  of  the  perfect 
manhood  of.  Christ,  and  never  consider  this  side  of  his 
nature,  we  must  be  making  a  grave  omission — an  omis- 
sion which  removes  from  our  view  half  of  the  more 
subtile  beauty  of  his  character. 

It  does  not  seem  wrong  to  say  that  there  was  in  Him 
the  sensibility  to  natural  beauty.     It  has  always  been 


TJic  Beauty  of  Christ's  CJiaracter.  97 

my  pleasure  to  think  tliat  He  also,  like  us,  wished  and 
sought  that  nature  should  send  *  its  own  deep  quiet  to 
restore  his  heart.'  It  cannot  be  without  reason  that, 
when  He  was  wearied  and  outdone,  He  called  to  his 
disciples  to  go  away  into  a  desert  place  to  rest  awhile ; 
that  when  Jerusalem  was  loud  in  his  ears.  He  oftimes 
resorted  to  the  glades  of  Gethsemane ;  that  when  He 
desired  to  pray,  He  went  alone  into  the  hills ;  that  when 
He  felt  the  transfiguration  glory  coming  upon  Him,  He 
ascended  the  lofty  side  of  Hermon;  that  when  He 
taught,  it  was  by  preference  by  the  waves  of  Galilee, 
or  walking  through  the  corn-fields  on  the  Sabbath,  or 
on  the  summit  of  some  grassy  hill.  We  know  that  He 
had  watched  the  tall  '  lilies '  arrayed  more  gloriously 
than  Solomon  ;  that  He  had  marked  the  reed  shaken  in 
the  wind,  and  the  tender  green  of  the  first  shoot  of  the 
fig-tree.  We  find  his  common  teaching  employed  about 
the  vineyard,  and  the  wandering  sheep,  and  the  whiten- 
ing com,  and  the  living  well,  the  summer  rain,  and  the 
wintry  flood  and  storm.  These  and  many  more  would 
not  have  been  so  often  connected  with  his  action  and 
so  ready  on  his  lips  had  not  He  loved  them  well,  and 
received  their  impressions  vividly. 

There  are  those  to  whom  this  thought  may  have  no 
value,  but  to  others  the  character  of  a  perfect  man  wants 
this  to  make  it  beautiful,  and  beauty  is  of  necessity  an 
element  of  perfectness.  It  is  true  that  the  beauty  which 
comes  of  this  sensibility  to  Nature  is  not  so  profoundly 
tender  and  varied  as  that  which  comes  of  sensibility  to 
human  feeling,  but  it  is  calmer,  perhaps  more  sublime : 
there  is  a  glory  of  purity  in  it  and  of  passion  un- 


98  The  BeaiUy  of  Christ's  Character. 

deformed  by  evil,  wliicli  makes  the  cliaracter  whicli  pos- 
sesses it  spiritual,  not  only  with  the  spirituality  -which 
unites  the  spirit  to  its  heavenly  Father,  hut  also  with 
that  which  unites  the  imagination  and  the  intellect  to 
that  part  of  the  being  of  God  which  moves  in  and 
is  revealed  by  the  beauty  and  order  of  the  universe. 

To  many  men  who  have  the'  poetic  temperament, 
who  see  as  much  in  a  flower  as  in  a  book  of  genius,  to 
exclude  Christ  from  all  this  region  is  to  separate  them 
from  Christianity ;  to  find  Him  truly  there  is  to  hallow 
their  love  of  Nature  and  their  work  therein,  and  to  fill 
with  a  diviner  air  those  moments  of  communion  with 
the  universe,  when  thought  is  not,  but  only  inspiration. 

But  still  higher  in  Him  was  that  intense  sensibility 
to  human  feeling,  which  made  Him  by  instinct  know, 
without  the  necessity  of  speech,  the  feelings  of  those 
He  met. 

This  is  the  highest  touch  of  beauty  in  a  character. 
What  is  it  which  most  charms  us  in  a  friend  ?  It  is 
that  he  can  read  the  transient  expression  on  our  face 
and  modify  himself  to  suit  the  feeling  we  are  ourselves 
but  half  conscious  of  possessing;  it  is  that  he  knows 
when  to  be  silent  and  when  to  speak ;  it  is  that  he 
never  mistakes,  but  sees  us  true  when  all  the  world  is 
wrong  about  us ;  it  is  that  he  can  distinguish  the 
cynicism  of  tenderness  from  that  of  malice,  and  believe 
our  love  though  we  choose  to  mask  our  heart. 

Such  a  friend  has  not  only  power  of  character  but 
beauty  of  character.  Who  is  it  who  is  most  haunted  in 
society,  around  whom  people  collect  as  around  a  perfect 
picture  ?     It  is  that  man  or  woman  who,  from  sensi- 


The  Beauty  of  ChrisC s  Character.  99 

bility  to  the  feeling  of  others,  knows  how  to  dcvelope  in 
the  noblest  way  each  personality,  whose  mediatinp;' 
charity  and  sympathy  bring  into  musical  accord  the 
several  characters  of  their  society,  till,  all  having  been 
lured  to  do  what  each  can  do  best,  they  learn  to  work 
happily  and  live  happily  together. 

This  is  another  element  of  the  beautiful  character, 
and  the  root  of  its  beauty  is  sensibility  which  worketh 
by  love,  and  delights  in  its  own  power. 

He  saw  Nathanael  in  the  early  days  coming  to  Him 
from  the  garden  and  the  fig-tree.  He  looked  upon  the 
simple  and  earnest  face,  and  recognised  the  long  effort 
of  the  man  to  be  true.  In  a  moment  He  frankly 
granted  the  meed  of  praise  :  '  Behold  an  Israelite  in- 
deed, in  whom  there  is  no  guile.'  A  few  words  more, 
in  which  Christ  went  home  to  the  secret  trials  of  the 
man,  and  Nathanael  was  his  for  ever. 

He  met  Peter  in  the  morning  light,  and  seeing 
through  all  the  surface  impetuosity  of  his  character 
deep  into  the  strength  of  "his  nature,  called  him  Cephas, 
the  man  of  rock,  on  whose  powerful  character  the 
infant  Church  should  be  built.  And  Peter,  catching 
inspiration  from  the  word,  saw  a  new  life  opening 
before  him  and  began  to  believe  in  his  own  power ;  too 
much  at  first  and  for  some  years,  till,  in  the  hour  of 
bitter  failure,  the  transient  force,  of  self-confidence 
melted  away  before  the  last  look  of  his  Master,  and 
the  diviner  strength, which  flows  from  penitence  fulfilled 
the  prediction  of  Christ. 

When  the  woman  who  was  a  sinner  knelt  at  his 
sacred   feet  and  wept,  Christ  felt  the  thrill  of  con- 


lOO         The  Beauty  of  Chris fs  Character. 

tempt  "wliicli  ran  from  guest  to  guest,  and  felt  Low 
bitterly  it  smote  npon  tlie  woman's  sonl.  He  turned, 
and  in  an  exquisite  reproof  rebuked  the  scorn,  sliamed 
the  scorners,  and  redeemed  the  woman  bj  recognition 
of  ber  tenderness.  Fallen,  shamed,  the  exile  of  the 
world,  she  was  born  into  a  noble  ]ife  when  those  words 
fell  upon  her  ear  :  '  Her  sins  which  are  many  are  for- 
given her,  for  she  loved  much.'  When  the  malefactor 
on  the  cross  appealed  to  Him,  Christ  saw  at  once 
that  the  fountain  of  a  noble  life  had  begun  to  flow. 
Without  an  instant's  hesitation.  He  claimed  its  waters 
for  Paradise.  When  the  persistency  of  Thomas  refused 
to  believe  without  a  sign,  another  teacher  might  have 
been  angry.  Christ  penetrated  to  the  inner  honesty 
which  prompted  the  scepticism  and  vouchsafed  a  reply 
of  love.  It  struck  home,  and  the  Apostle's  heart  was 
broken  into  adoration.  It  was  the  same  with  bodies 
of  men  as  with  men.  He  wove  into  one  instrument  of 
work  the  various  characters  of  the  Apostles,  making 
them  harmonise  with  and  understand  each  other.  How 
did  He  hold  together  those  vast  multitudes  day  by 
day?  By  feeling  their  hearts  within  his  own.  How 
did  He  shame  and  confute  his  enemies  ?  By  an  instinct 
of  their  objections  and  their  whispers,  so  that  He  re- 
plied to  their  thoughts  before  they  were  spoken.  Men, 
women,  and  children,  all  who  were  natural,  unconven- 
tional, simple  in  love,  and  powerful  in  faith,  ran  to 
Him  as  a  child  to  its  mother.  They  felt  the  beauty 
of  character  -which  was  born  of  sensibility  to  human 
feeling  and  spiritual  wants,  and  they  were  bound  to  Him 
for  ever. 


TJie  Beauty  of  Christ's  Ouiractci\         loi 

Tliis,  then,  is  the  Founder  of  a  religion  for  man, 
a  religion  not  t>nly  of  the  inner  and  mystical  life  of 
the  spirit,  but  also  a  religion  of  feeling  and  imagina- 
tion ;  which  talks  not  only  of  sin,  and  suffering,  and 
redemption,  but  which  has  entered,  in  its  Author's  life, 
into  those  finer  touches  of  sense,  and  those  remoter 
haunts  of  imagination  "which  are  at  once  the  minis- 
trants  and  the  children  of  a  high  culture ;  which, 
taking  its  impulse  from  the  natural  instinct  of  Christ 
to  penetrate  by  feeling  into  the  lives  and  hearts  of  men 
and  catch  their  fleeting  impressions,  and  to  do  this  for 
all  men — so  that  He  saw  the  beautiful  and  the  strange 
in  men  who  seemed  to  others  commonplace — has  ena- 
bled us,  using  his  instrument  of  love,  to  grow  ourselves 
beautiful  in  character  from  continual  discovery  and 
vision  of  the  beautiful  in  others ;  till  gaining  his  power 
of  seeing  in  nature  the  ever-changing  forms  of  one 
Divine  beauty,  and  of  seeing  in  man,  beneath  all  evil, 
the  unalterable  traits  of  that  image  of  the  heavenly 
which  Christ  revealed,  we  grow  up  into  somewhat  of 
his  loveliness  of  character,  and  begin  to  look  forward 
with  a  strange,  new  exultation  to  the  fulfilment  of 
that  ancient  promise :  *  Thine  eyes  shall  see  the  King 
in  his  beauty.' 


ib'2*  '       77te' jSea'icty  of  Chris  I' s  Cluirader, 


THE  BEAUTY   OF  CHRIST S'  CHARACTER. 

'  Thine  eyes  shall  see  the  King  in  his  beauty.' — Isfttah  xxxiii.'  17. 

There  is  a  difference  between  tlie  worthiness  and  tlie 
beauty  of  a  cbaracter.  A  man's  acts  and  tliouglits  may 
have  worth  to  kindle  respect,  but  not  to  touch  the 
imagination  with  that  peculiar  pleasure  which  is  de- 
rived from  the  reception  of  beauty.  They  are  like  the 
reading  of  honourable  prose ;  whereas  the  same  acts  and 
thoughts  by  a  character  which  is  beautiful  as  well  as 
worthy,  are  like  the  reading  of  noble  poetrj^  "We  con- 
tinue to  read  the  character  of  Christ  to-day,  not  for  its 
worth  especially,  but  distinctly  for  the  poetic  beauty 
which  adorns  its  worth. 

The  first  of  its  beautiful  elements  we  found  to  be  sensi- 
bility, and  we  described  how  intense  it  was  with  regard 
to  impressions  received  from  nature  and  from  man. 
But  we  especially  said  that  this  sensibility  was  neces- 
sarily active  in  a  perfect  character.  It  seeks,  and  that 
with  passion,  to  clothe  and  to  realise  itself  in  an  out- 
ward form.  We  discussed  it  in  itself  last  Sunday. 
Our  object  to-day  will  be  to  investigate  it  in  action  in 
the  words  and  deeds  of  Christ.  A  certain  amount  of 
.repetition  of  thought  will  naturally  mark  what  we  have 


Tlie  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.         103 

to  say,  but  the  thoughts  will  be  repeated  from  a  nev» 
point  of  view  and  in  a  new  form.  • 

Sensibility  to  nature  and  man,  in  action,  is  sym- 
pathy with  nature  and  man,  and  it  is  plain  that  unless 
the  former  passes  into  and  completes  itself  in  the 
latter,  it  soon  ceases  to  bo  an  element  of  beauty  in 
character.  For  nothing  is  really  beautiful  which  does 
not  grow,  or  change,  or  give  us  the  impression  of  vital 
energy  either  within  itself  or  employed  upon  it.  This 
is  doubly  true  when  the  beauty  spoken  of  is  not  phy- 
sical beauty,  but  belonging  to  a  living  character  like 
that  of  Christ. 

First,  then,  we  have  to  trace,  as  delicately  and  as 
reverently  as  we  can,  how  the  sensibility  of  Christ  to 
the  beauty  of  nature  became  active  as  sympathy  with 
nature. 

There  are  many  who  possess  the  former,  but  who 
never  employ  either  intellect  or  imagination  on  the 
impressions  which  they  receive  through  its  means. 
Remaining  passive,  they  permit  the  tide  of  this  world's 
beauty  to  flow  in  and  flow  out  again  of  their  mind 
without  the  exercise  of  any  thought  upon  it.  We  feel 
that  that  sort  of  passive  nnintelligent  reception  is 
uglier  in  a  character  than  the  absence  'of  any  sensi- 
bility at  all.  For  we  are  made  conscious  of  a  moral 
wrong  done  by  these  persons  to  their  own  character. 
They  might  have  made  so  much  of  their  native  power 
of  receptiveness  ;  they  have  done  nothing  with  it.  It 
is  true  that  Wordsworth,  in  whom  this  sensibiUty  was 
very  great,  speaks  of  a  '  wise  passiveness,'  and  of  sur- 
rendering ourselves  at  times  to  those  lessons  of  the 


104         The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character, 

universe  which,  come  of  themselves,  without  our  seek- 
ing. But, this  is  only  at  times.  No  man  was  ever 
more  active  than  Wordsworth  about  the  impressions 
derived  from  his  sensibility  to  natural  beauty.  He 
gave  himself  up  to  them,  but  it  was  that  they  might 
change,  as  they  flowed  in,  the  whole  landscape  of  his 
soul ;  that  his  imagination  might,  under  their  influence, 
become  continually  active  in  new  directions  of  thought 
and  feeling.  And  nothing  is  more  remarkable  in 
"Wordsworth,  whose  poems  are  the  record  of  his  life, 
than  the  way  in  which  impressions,  passively  received, 
became  vital  and  creative  forces  in  him,  when  he  added 
to  them  the  force  of  his  own  imagination.  So  great 
was  this,  that  we  might  almost  say  that  at  every  hour 
of  his  daily  walk  among  the  hills,  he  became  a  new- 
created  man,  was  different  in  character  from  that  which 
he  had  been  the  previous  hour.  His  sensibility  to 
nature  translated  itself  into  so  passionate  a  sympathy 
with  nature,  that  he  felt  towards  wood  and  hill  and 
stream  as  he  would  towards  persons  whom  he  loved. 
The  result  was  that  he  became  creative ;  each  feeling 
took  form  as  a  poem. 

The  beauty  of  all  this  in  a  character  is  the  impres- 
sion of  life  and  change  it  gives,  united  to  the  im- 
pression of  human  power  in  noble  intellectual  action. 

Now,  obscure  as  are  the  hints  we  possess  with  regard 
to  the  sensibility  of  Christ  to  impressions  received 
from  nature,  yet  we  have  enough  recorded  to  show  us 
that  the  same  activity  of  sensibility  which  belongs  to 
the  poetic  nature  belonged  to  Him. 

You  remember  that  passage,  when,  as  He  walked 


The  Beauty  of  Christ s  Character.         165 

silently  along,  He  suddenly  lifted  up  his  eyes  and  saw 
the  fields  whitening  already  to  harvest.  He  received 
the  impression  in  a  passive  mood.  It  changed  the 
whole  current  of  his  thoughts,  and  the  whole  state  of 
his  soul.  Immediately  thought  seized  on  the  change 
worked  within  Him  by  the  impression  and  expressed  it 
in  words.  It  marks  a  beautiful  character  to  be  so 
rapidly  and  delicately  impressed,  but  the  beauty  of  the 
character  becomes  vital  beauty  when  the  man,  through 
utter  sympathy  with  and  love  of  what  he  feels,  be- 
comes himself  creative  of  new  thought. 

Again:  the  poet,  in  hours  when  he  is  not  in  the 
passive  mood,  makes  his  sensibility  active  through  the 
combining,  modifying,  and  life-conferring  work  of  the 
imagination.  The  impressions  received  are  contrasted 
with  one  another,  or  composed  into  unity,  or  shaped 
into  a  vital  form.  But  though  they  suffer  these  changes, 
and  are  made  into  the  form  of  a  poem,  which  contains, 
but  is  different  from,  the  impressions,  the  poem  itself 
does  not  become  out  of  harmony  with  the  natural  beauty 
which  suggested  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  a  reflex 
action  on  the  impressions  which  caused  it,  and  gives 
them  deeper  meaning ;  and  it  enables  us  to  penetrate 
below  the  surface-beauty  of  the  world,  and  to  find  there 
a  spiritual  loveliness.  It  gets  into  the  inner  being  of 
nature  and  explains  it.  The  poet's  sensibility  to  nature 
becomes  active  as  personal  sympathy  with  the  living 
soul  of  nature. 

This  also  we  find  in  the  character  of  Christ/  Take 
a  single  instance.  In  an  active  mood — for  He  was 
teaching — He  saw  a  corn-field  by  the  shore  of  the  lake. 


1 66         Tlie  Beattty  of  Chris fs  Character. 

and  a  number  of  images  streamed  into  his  mind.  He 
looked  on  the  whole  career  of  the  corn-field — the  sowing 
of  the  seed,  the  beaten  path  through  the  midst,  the 
seed  downtrodden  by  the  passengers  and  gathered  up 
bj  the  birds,  the  rich  harvest  in  the  good  soil,  the  blades 
of  wheat  choked  by  the  rough  thicket  at  the  edge,  and 
towards  the  hill-slope  the  patches  of  withered  com 
over  the  shelving  rock,  where  the  earth  lay  loose  and 
thin. 

In  a  moment  all  the  impressions  were  taken  up  by 
the  imagination,  and  combined  into  the  parable  of  the 
sower.  They  were  carried  into  the  spiritual  world. 
They  were  shaped  into  a  picture  of  human  life,  with  its 
temptations,  and  its  struggles,  and  its  end. 

They  were  gathered  up  into  a  poem,  which  gave 
back  to  nature  the  impressions  received,  in  a  new  form, 
which  clothed  the  natural  scene  with  new  beauty,  and 
went  below  its  surface  into  its  hidden  meaning. 

This  could  only  be  done  by  sensibility  to  nature 
becoming  sympathy  with  that  inward  being  of  nature 
which  is  the  image  of  the  Thought  of  God.  And,  indeed, 
we  meet  again  and  again  in  his  teaching,  touches  of 
thought  which  make  us  feel  that,  to  the  Saviour,  all 
the  world  was  not  dead  but  a  living  thing,  informed 
and  penetrated  by  God.  Again  and  again,  the  king- 
dom of  God  is  spoken  of  as  symbolised  by  the  growth 
of  the  tree,  by  the  development  of  the  seed,  by  the 
fermentation  of  the  leaven;  the  character  of  God, 
by  the  »shining  of  the  sun  and  the  falling  of  the  rain 
upon  evil  and  good  alike;  the  dealings  of  God  with 
man,  by  the  dealings  of  the  gardener  with  the  fig-tree. 


Tlie  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.         1 07 

of  the  sliepherd  with  the  sheep ;  the  spiritual  union  of 
His  people  with  Himself,  by  the  union  of  the  vine- 
branch  with  the  vine,  by  the  assimilation  of  bread  and 
wine  with  the  body  for  strength  and  comfort.  Every- 
where it  is  the  perfection  of  sensibility  to  natural 
impressions  in  its  activity  as  sympathy  with  the  being 
of  nature.  Everywhere,  as  we  read,  we  become  con- 
scious of  the  beauty  of  the  character  which  translated, 
by  its  own  Divine  vitality,  mere  sensibility  into  sensi- 
bility as  sympathy,  mere  feeling  into  living  thought. 

Once  more,  on  this  subject.  Sensibility  to  beautif&l 
natural  impressions,  when  it  is  inactive,  does  not  dis- 
tinguish clearly  between  these  impressions.  It  has  no 
distinctiveness  in  its  praise ;  it  has  only  one  feeling  for 
all  the  different  aspects  of  the  world.  As  such,  it  at 
once  becomes  inert,  degraded,  an  element  of  ugliness 
in  a  character.  Wo  all  know  how  wearisome  is  his 
enthusiasm  who  parades  the  same  stock  of  phrases,  who 
knows  not  when  to  give  the  praise  of  silence,  whose 
feelings  are  the  same,  whether  he  look  on  a  peaceful 
landscape  or  on  an  Alpine  valley,  who  has  the  same 
undisceming  delight  in  the  beauty  of  a  rose  or  the 
beauty  of  a  violet.  This  is  sensibility  degraded  by* 
laziness  into  a  deformity  in  a  character.  We  turn  away 
displeased  and  pained. 

The  true  sensibility  becoming  sympathy,  sympathises 
with  the  distinct  nature  of  each  thing  it  feels,  divides 
each  thing  from  all  the  rest,  gives  to  each  a  dif- 
ferent praise,  feels  for  each  a  different  feeling,  and 
harmonises  itself  with  the  tone  of  each  impression. 
This  is  one  of  the  highest  qualities  of  the  poet.    Ifc  ia 


io8         The  Beauty  of  Chris fs  Character. 

to  be  found  in  the  character  of  Christ,  and  it  gives  to 
it  a  peculiar  and  delicate  beauty. 

We  find  it  suggested  in  the  perfect  appositeness  of  the 
illustrations  He  drew  from  nature  to  the  thoughts  He 
desires  to  illustrate.  '  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field, 
how  they  grow ;  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin :  and 
yet  I  say  unto  you.  That  even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory 
was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these.'  Can  anything  be 
more  exquisite  than  that? — the  lilies  being  not  our 
lilies  of  the  valley,  but  the  tall  crimson  flowers  which 
rOund  about  Gennesareth  still  raise  their  heads  like 
kings  in  splendour. 

But  this  distinctiveness  appears  still  more  in  the 
choice  of  places  for  certain  moods  of  mind.  When  the 
lonely  struggle  of  the  temptation  had  to  be  wrought 
out.  He  went  into  the  wilderness.  For  communion 
with  his  Father,  when  He  was  weary  of  heart.  He 
chose  the  hill-top  in  its  silence  beneath  the  stars ;  for 
transfiguration,  Hermon,  when  the  glory  of  the  setting 
sun  poured  a  flood  of  gold  into  its  valleys;  for  the 
agony,  Gethsemane,  with  olives  dark  in  the  moon,  and 
the  rough  patter  of  Kedron  over  its  stony  bed.  Think 
of  these  things.  They  speak  of  acute  sensibility  in 
vital  activity ;  they  give  us  an  impression  of  delicate 
beauty  of  character. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  this  interest  of  Christ's  in 
natural  beauty  as  having  a  real  practical  bearing  upon 
our  life.  But  there  is  something  more  to  say.  In  it. 
Christ  is  seen  as  the  Master  and  source  of  natural 
religion.  In  his  parables,  in  his  wanderings  over  hill 
and  plain,  in  the  grove  and  by  the  lake.  He  gathers 


The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character,         109 

up  and  claims  as  Divine,  all  those  dim  regrets  and 
vague  ideals,  those  thoughts  which  lie  too  deep  for 
tears,  those  moments  of  ecstacy  with  nature,  when  imagi- 
nation transfigures  life ;  all  that  world  of  poetry,  music, 
and  art,  which  the  sense  of  natural  beauty  stirs  in  the 
heart  of  man,  and  creates  by  the  hand  of  man.  And 
in  this  He  recognises  as  his  own  the  natural  religion 
of  to-day,  and  bids  us  believe  in  its  beauty  and  add  it 
to  the  spiritual. 

Never,  men  say,  was  faith  weaker  than  now :  never 
they  own,  was  the  poetic  recognition  of  the  beauty  and 
mystery  of  the  world  greater  than  now.  Never,  cer- 
tainly, did  the  imaginative  sense  of  the  forms  of  ex- 
ternal nature  more  tell  upon  the  moral  temper  of 
mankind  than  now.  The  study  of  art,  the  love  of 
music,  the  mere  sight  of  the  grander  scenery  of  the 
world,  to  see  which  we  make  an  exodus  every  year,  are 
moral  agencies  which  are  influencing  lives  around  us, 
as  really,  and  in  many  cases  more  widely,  than  the 
directly  religious  teaching  we  can  give.  There  are 
those  who  condemn  these  things  as  leading  men  away 
from  the  spiritual  world.  They  have  forgotten  the 
teaching  of  Christ.  K  all  be  true  which  we  have  now 
said,  Christ  felt  these  modem  feelings,  and  led  men  to 
God  through  nature  and  its  works.  And  it  may  be 
that  in  this  modem  tendency,  the  spirit  of  Christ  is 
teaching  now  as  of  old ;  tliat  from  the  schools  of 
theology  and  the  pulpits  of  our  synagogues  He  is 
leading  forth  the  crowd  into  the  fields  and  the  wilder- 
ness and  by  the  lake,  that  He  may  teach  them  there  in 
parables  to  know  and  see  the  King  in  his  beauty. 


no         The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character. 

Secondly,  if  it  be  true  that  sensibility  to  natural  im- 
pressions ceases  to  be  a  beautiful  thing  in  a  character, 
unless  it  become  active  through  sympathy,  it  is  still 
more  plainly  true  of  sensibility  to  human  feeling.  It 
is  a  beautiful  thing  to  be  sensible  to  noble  conduct,  to 
feel  inspired  by  courage  in  another,  to  rejoice  in  truth 
when  truth  dies  for  righteousness'  sake,  to  thrill  with 
compassion  for  sorrow.  But  if  these  feelings  never 
realise  themselves  in  practical  sympathy,  we  instinc- 
tively feel  that  they  are  only  another  form  of  sel- 
fishness, that  men  encourage  them  for  the  excitement 
they  afford  them,  not  for  the  good  they  urge  them 
to  do  to  others.  They  connect  themselves  in  our 
mind  with  the  slothfulness  which  refuses  to  put  them 
into  work,  and  the  connection  of  selfishness  and  sloth 
with  anything  takes  from  it  all  vital  beauty. 

It  was  not  so  with  Christ.  His  extraordinary  sen- 
sibility to  human  feeling  became  operative  at  once  as 
sympathy,  was  at  once  translated  into  action.  I  need 
scarcely  seek  for  examples  of  this.  It  is  in  all  our 
remembrance  how  his  tenderness  stayed  upon  the  way- 
side to  satisfy  the  mother's  heart  and  to  bless  the 
children ;  how  his  compassion  felt  in  itself  the  weari- 
ness of  the  multitude  and  gave  it  rest  and  food.  We 
remember  how  swift  was  the  love  wliich,  touched  by 
the  widow's  weeping,  stopped  the  bier  and  restored  to 
his  mother's  arms  the  son ;  how  strange ,  that  passion 
of  tears  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  which  wept  because 
those  He  loved  were  weeping  even  at  the  moment 
when  He  was  about  to  give  back  the  lost ;  how  dis- 
criminating the  sympathy  which  gave  to  Martha  and 


The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.         1 1 1 

to  Mary  their  several  meed  of  praise ;  liow  unspeakable 
in  beauty  that  translation  into  words  of  the  sorrow  of 
the  mother  and  the  Apostle,  which  He  felt  within  Him- 
self, and  to  both  phases  of  which,  in  utter  forgetful- 
ness  of  his  own  pain,  He  spoke  distinctively :  *  Woman, 
behold  thy  son  ! '  Friend,  *  behold  thy  mother  ! '  And 
how  delicate  and  yet  what  a  home-thrust  to  the  shame 
and  love  of  Peter,  how  actively  creative  in  its  effects 
upon  the  Apostle's  character,  was  that  threefold  question, 
*  Lovest  thou  me?'  All  was  felt  which  human  feeling 
felt,  and  then  all  was  sympathised  with  actively,  till  at 
last,  upon  the  cross,  all  the  sorrows  of  the  world  were 
taken  in  to  Himself  and  borne  in  the  activity  of 
voluntary  suffering,  that  they  might  be  for  ever,  in  the 
end,  lifted  off  the  heart  of  mankind.  It  is  there,  when 
intense  sensibility  to  the  want,  and  woe,  and  sin  of  men 
had  led  Him  to  absolute  self-sacrifice  through  sym- 
pathy— there,  in  that  bowed  head  and  broken  Manhood 
— that  we  realise  at  last,  in  the  radiance  of  love  which 
eye  hath  not  seen,  the  King  in  his  perfect  beauty. 

This,  then,  is  loveliness  of  character  for  you  and  me. 
Remember,  we  have  no  right  to  boast  of  our  sensibility 
to  the  feelings  of  others ;  nay,  it  is  hateful  in  us,  till 
we  lift  it  into  the  beauty  of  sympathising  action. 

One  word  more  upon  this  sympathy.  It  was  given 
to  all  the  world ;  but  it  was  not  given  in  a  like 
manner  to  all,  nor 'at  all  times.  There  is  a  certain 
unpleasantness  in  undiscriminating  sympathy,  which 
possesses  nothing  special  nor  any  moments  of  reserve. 
Such  a  character  is  without  loveliness;  we  find  no 
mystery  in  it  to  charm  and  lure ;  we  have  no  sense  of 


112         The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character, 

depths  which,  we  should  delight  to  penetrate;  we  know 
all,  and  having  known  all,  pass  on  by  an  irresistible 
necessity,  and  leave  that  friend  behind.  He  is  super- 
ficial— in  one  word,  he  wants  humanity. 

Plainly,  the  sympathy  of  Christ  did  not  want  this 
element  of  beauty.  He  had,  in  its  fitting  place,  the 
Teutonic  quality  of  reserve.  He  shrank  from  over- 
X)ublicity;  He  kept  his  secret  heart  for  those  dearest 
to  Him,  though  his  love  went  over  the  world.  He 
gave  closer  sympathy  and  afiection  to  three  among  his 
disciples  than  to  the  others.  He  gave  more  tenderness 
to  Mary  than  to  Martha.  Without  any  favouritism. 
He  still,  as  a  personal  friend,  individualised  his  affec- 
tion. He  felt  the  necessity  at  times  for  even 'deeper 
reserve.  When  the  multitude  oppressed  Him,  He  went 
away  with  his  disciples  to  the  desert ;  when  his  disciples 
could  not  comfort  Him,  the  lonely  man  went  apart  to 
speak  only  with  his  Father.  There  often  hung  round 
his  actions  and  his  teaching  an  indefiniteness,  neces- 
sitated by  the  vast  range  of  his  thought,  and  by  the 
profound  way  in  which  He  felt  the  problems  of  life 
and  spoke  their  explanation,  which  threw  around  Him, 
and  still  throws  around  Him  to  us,  that  beauty  which 
lies  in  mystery,  when  it  is  a  mystery  which  we  know  by 
experience  is  worth  our  further  search.  Still  we  feel 
that  He  has  many  things  to  say  to  us  and  to  the  world 
which  we  cannot  bear  now.  Still  He  speaks  to  us  in 
proverbs  and  in  parables.  Still  the  imagination,  the 
feeling,  and  the  intellect  of  man  have  an  endless  field 
of  work  in  his  character  and  his  teaching.  Still  we  are 
lured  by  the  beauty  of  His  life  to  discover  in  it  new 
beauty.     His  character  possesses  the  loveliness  which 


The  Beauty  of  Chrhfs  CJiarader,         1 1 3 

belongs  to  reserve,  to  distinctiveness  of  love,  to  the 
mystery  which  comes  from  depth  of  nature  and  infinity 
of  thought. 

Therefore  remember,  that  Christ  has  sanctified  what 
is  good  in  that  quality  we  call  reserve.  Do  not  be  too 
anxious  to  give  away  yourself,  to  wear  your  heart  upon 
your  sleeve.  It  is  not  only  unwise,  it  is  wrong  to  make 
your  secret  soul  common  property.  For  you  bring  the 
delicate  things  of  the  heart  into  contempt  by  exposing 
them  to  those  who  cannot  understand  them.  If  you 
throw  pearls  before  swine,  they  will  turn  again  and 
rend  you. 

Nor,  again,  should  you  claim  too  much  openness,  as  a 
tluty  due  to  you,  from  your  child,  your  friend,  your  wife, 
or  your  husband.  Much  of  the  charm  of  life  is  ruined 
by  exacting  demands  of  confidence.  Respect  the  na- 
tural modesty  of  the  soul;  its  more  delicate  flowers 
of  feeling  close  their  petals  when  they  are  touched  too 
rudely.  Wait  with  curious  love — with  eager  interest 
— for  the  time  when,  aU  being  harmonious,  the  revela- 
tion will  come  of  its  own  accord,  undemanded.  The 
expectation  has  its  charm,  for  as  long  as  life  has  some- 
thing to  learn,  life  is  interesting  ;  as  long  as  a  friend 
has  something  to  give,  friendship  is  delightful.  Those 
who  wish  to  destroy  all  mystery  in  those  they  love,  to 
have  everything  revealed,  are  unconsciously  killing 
their  own  happiness.  It  is  much  to  be  with  those  who 
have  many  things  to  say  to  us  which  we  cannot  bear 
now.  It  is  much  to  live  with  those  who  sometimes 
speak  to  us  in  parables — if  we  love  them.  Love  needs 
some  indefiniteness  in  order  to  keep  its  charm.  Respect, 


114         ^'^^  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character. 

which  saves  love  from  the  familiarity  which  degrades  it, 
is  kept  vivid  when  we  feel  that  there  is  a  mystery  in 
those  we  love  which  comes  of  depth  of  character. 

Eemember  that  in  violating  your  own  reserve,  or 
that  of  another,  you  destroy  that  sensitiveness  of  cha- 
racter which  makes  so  much  of  the  beauty  of  cha- 
racter ;  and  beauty  of  character  is  not  so  common  as 
not  to  make  it  a  cruel  thing  to  spoil  it. 

Again,  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  Christ  sanctified 
distinctiveness  in  friendship  and  love.  !No  character 
can  be  beautiful,  though  it  may  be  excellent,  which 
can  give  the  same  amount  of  affection  to  all  alike.  It 
argues  a  want  of  delicacy,  and,  worse  still,  a  want  of 
individuality  in  the  character,  which  at  once  negativfi 
its  beauty.  There  are  some  who  think  that  they  should 
strive  to  bestow  equal  love  on  all,  and  who,  on  religious 
grounds,  avoid  particular  friendships.  It  was  not  Christ's 
way,  and  it  ends  badly.  They  only  succeed  in  spoiling 
their  power  of  loving  and  power  of  sympathy.  These 
are  gained  and  strengthened  by  strongly  felt  and 
special  love  for  a  few.  If  you  want  to  give  love  and 
sympathy  to  all,  have  profound  love  for  particular 
persons ;  for  you  cannot  gain  the  power  of  loving 
otherwise  than  in  a  natural  manner,  and  it  is  unnatural 
to  love  all  alike.  But  love,  easily  going  forth  to  those 
whom  you  find  it  easy  to  love,  learns  to  grow  deep 
and  to  double  its  power — and  then  spreads  abroad  like  a 
stream  which  is  most  impetuous  at  its  fountains.  Christ 
did  not  love  the  world  less,  but  more,  because  He  had 
peculiar  personal  affections,  and  it  is  to  that  distinc- 
tiveness of  love  we  turn  when  we  would  realise   the 


Tlie  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character,         1 1 5 

beauty  of  his  love  as  distinguished  from  the  majesty  of 
his  love.  We  are  astonished  when  y^  think  of  the 
universality  of  his  tenderness — but  we  have  little 
comfort  from  it.  Our  soul  longs  for  some  personal 
contact  "vvith  Him.  Then  it  is  that  the  speciality  of 
his  love  for  some  comes  home  to  us,  and  we  know  that 
He  can  give  us  a  distinct  sympathy  fitted  for  our 
character.  His  love  is  universal,  for  all  the  race;  it 
is  particular,  to  each  one  of  the  race.  Majesty  of  cha- 
racter meets  in  this  with  beauty  of  character. 

Finally,  encourage  in  yourselves  the  sensibilities  of 
life.  No  man  is  born  quite  without  the  power  of 
receiving  impressions  from  nature,  and  from  human  na- 
ture, though  there  are  many  who  have  brought  death  by 
neglect  upon  their  native  power.  To  encourage  these 
sensibilities  is  not  to  fall  into  sentimental  indulgence 
of  feeling,  for  you  can  only  encourage  and  increase 
them  by  active  exercise  of  imagination  and  intellect ; 
by  active  expression  of  them  in  the  suppoi-t  and  comfort 
of  men.  It  is  those  who  take  no  real  pains  with  their 
sensibilities,  who  fall  into  mere  sentiment. 

Open  your  heart  to  receive  the  teaching  of  nature ; 
not  too  passively,  lest  you  lose  your  individuality,  but 
letting  all  your  powers  freely  play  upon  the  lessons 
she  brings  to  you ;  nor  yet  assuming  too  much  activity 
of  intellect  upon  what  you  receive  from  her,  lest  you 
lose  the  humility  of  receptiveness. 

Open  your  heart  to  receive  the  teaching  which  comes 
to  you  from  human  nature.  Feeling  received  and 
feeling  given  back  will  educate  you  into  a  strange  like- 
ness to  Christ.     You  will  learn,  like  Christ,  to  find  your 


1 1 6         The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character. 

religion  in  human  life.  Listen  lowly  to  tlie  simple 
common  word  whicli  is  very  nigli  to  us ;  for  in  tlie  com- 
mon details,  accidents,  affections  of  life — in  the  common 
relations  of  man  to  man,  and  of  man  to  animals — in 
daily  joys,  and  daily  sorrows,  that  word  speaks  of  the 
love  of  God  to  us,  and  of  our  childlike  love  to  Him. 
But,  both  nature  and  man  speak  to  us  now,  as  Jesus 
spoke,  in  parables.  He  who  has  lost  his  sensitive- 
ness cannot  understand  these  parables. 


The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Cluiractcr,         1 1 7 


THE  BEAUT r  OF  CHRIST S  CHARACTER. 

*  Thine  eyes  shall  see  the  King  in  bis  beauty.' — Isaiah  xxxiii.  17. 

There  are  human  lives  whicli  are  poems,  as  there  are 
lives  which  are  prose.  Some  have  the  stately  epic 
character,  and  we  watch  the  course  of  their  purifica- 
tion through  the  events  of  a  nation's  birth,  or  the 
growth  of  a  rehgious  idea.  Others  are  the  centre  of 
so  much  of  the  doing  and  suffering  of  men,  and  move 
towards  their  fate  with  so  deep  an  influence  on  the 
development  of  others,  that  we  may  well  compare 
them  to  the  evolution  of  a  drama.  Others  stand  for 
the  most  part  alone,  in  a  musical  unity  of  life,  com- 
plete in  themselves,  and  lovely  with  noble  feeling. 
These  are  the  lyrical  souls  in  the  world. 

There  are  other  analogies,  but  let  these  suffice. 
They  are  the  beautiful*  lives,  lives  which  we  may  call 
artist  work.  Each  has  its  own  distinct  charm;  they 
give  pleasure  as  poetry  gives  it,  by  the  expression  of 
the  beautiful.  Such  a  life,  at  its  very  highest  range, 
was  the  life  of  Christ.  We  seek  its  poetry  to-day,  and 
we  weave  our  thoughts  of  it  round  that  profound  phrase 
of  Mnton's,  that  poetry  must  be  '  simple,  sensuous,  and 
passionate.' 

Now  if  our  comparison  be  tnie,  the  beautiful  cha- 


1 18         The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character. 

racter  must  also  possess  these  qualities  in  its  perfect 
development  of  reposefulness  and  activity.  He  must 
be  simple,  otherwise  the  vforld  cannot  be  widely  affected 
by  his  life  and  words.  There  are  poets  and  teachers 
who  speak  only  to  a  small  class,  touching  on  obscure 
or  temporary  phases  of  human  thought.  They  die 
with  the  age  which  gave  them  birth.  But  the  greater 
prophets  speak  the  language  of  the  common  human 
heart,  and  yet  have  depths  of  feeling  into  which  only 
a  few  can  penetrate.  For  every  superb  genius  is  at 
once  aristocrat  and  democrat.  The  common  people 
hear  him  gladly,  and  yet  to  few  it  is  given  to  know  his 
mysteries. 

Again,  he  must  be  not  only  simple,  but  also  sen- 
suous ;  that  is,  intensely  sensitive  to  impressions  de- 
rived through  the  senses,  and  continually  receiving  them. 
Tor  it  is  from  the  infinite  variety  of  these  impressions, 
and  the  ceaseless  work  of  his  imagination  upon  them, 
that  his  character  derives  the  beauty  of  changeful- 
ness — changefulness,  however,  which  is  subject  to  an 
inner  unity.  The  soul  of  such  a  man  is  beautiful, 
for  out  of  the  impulse  of  these  impressions  a  multi- 
tude of  feelings,  each  having  almost  imperceptible  shades 
of  difference,  are  bom  within  him,  so  that  he  can  allot 
to  each  thing  its  distinctive  tone,  and  to  each  person 
a  distinctive  sympathy,  till  at  last,  his  inner  life  be- 
comes like  that  wonderful  world  imagined  b}'  one  of 
our  poets : 

Where  do  inhabit 
The  shadows  of  all  forms  which  think  and  live. 

Dreams  and  the  light  imaginings  of  men, 
And  all  that  faith  creates  and  love  desireB. 


The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.         1 19 

And  more  than  he  imagined — the  types  of  all  natural 
forms  and  perfect  landscapes,  the  visions  which  come 
to  men  upon  the  solitary  hills ;  the  things  which  haunt 
*  thought's  wildernesses  ; '  the  air-bom,  filmy  children 
of  the  senses  when  married  to  imagination. 

Passionate  also  he  must  be,  for  all  this  received 
beauty  and  feeling  remain  unshared  and  unexpressed 
imless  they  be  so  passionately  felt  as  to  ensure  expres- 
sion. There  is  beauty  in  the  character  which  feels 
with  passion  but  cannot  speak.  The  pure  beauty  of 
feeling  passes  into  the  face ;  there,are  subtile  motions 
of  eyelid  and  lip  which  are  more  than  many  poems; 
there  are  acts  in  which  whole  books,  whole  lives,  are 
concentrated.  It  is  passion  in  silent  expression,  and 
within  its  sphere  the  range  and  forms  of  beauty  are 
immeasurable,  fi'om  the  almost  imperceptible  change 
within  the  smile  which  records  a  flying  cloud  of 
transient  joy  or  pain,  to  the  voiceless  death  in  which  a 
great  man's  sacrifice  ennobles  and  redeems  a  nation. 

But  when  the  power  of  speech  accompanies  the  ex- 
pression of  action,  when  he  who  acts  passionately  can 
also  strike  into  words  the  meaning  of  his  passion  and 
the  spirit  of  his  act,  and  send  it  down  for  ever  to 
thrill  and  inspire  mankind ;  then,  if  the  passion  which 
move  him  be  divinely  human  and  naturally  pure,  the 
crown  of  the  beauty  of  genius  has  been  reached. 

When  we  talk  of  passionate  poetry  we  mean  too 
often  that  which  speaks  only  of  the  passion  of  love. 
This  is  not  what  Milton  meant  by  his  word.  He  meant 
that  the  poetry  was  so  intense  on  every  subject  it 
treated,  that  one  knew  instinctively,  as  one  read,  that 


1 20         The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character, 

tLe  poet  had  lost  in  his  enthusiasm  of  expression  all 
thought  of  self.  Poetry  intense  on  one  subject  and 
not  on  all,  was  inferior  work ;  it  was  liable  to  become 
overstrained  on  that  one  subject,  and  in  doing  so  it 
lost  the  note  of  beauty.  This  has  been  more  or  less 
the  case  with  many  of  our  so-called  passionate  poets. 
It  provokes  a  smile  that  Byron — who,  with  all  his 
colossal  power,  was  always  looking  round  to  see  how 
the  world  was  affected  by  his  poetry,  and  whose  painful 
personality  is  intruded  into  his  most  vivid  descriptions 
of  love  and  nature — ^^hould  be  called  the  poet  of  passion, 
and  Wordsworth  the  poet  of  calm.  Wordsworth  did  not 
write  much  of  the  passion  of  false  love,  nor  of  the 
passion  of  true  love  between  youth  and  maiden;  but 
no  passion  is  at  a  whiter  heat  than  his  when  he  writes 
of  a  mother's  love  to  a  child,  or  of  a  husband  to  a  wife, 
and  we  never  hear  an  unmanly  note  of  self-consciousness. 
And  when  his  soul  was  stirred  with  the  greater  passions 
of  humanity — love  of  liberty,  sympathy  with  a  great 
nation  passing  through  a  storm  of  revolution,  deep 
sorrow  for  the  fall  of  a  people  from  a  glorious  past,  the 
aspiration  of  the  heart  of  mankind  to  the  Infinite, 
the  majesty  of  knowledge  and  the  eternity  of  his  own 
art — ^he  rises  to  a  height  of  majestic  passion,  his  words 
have  the  stately  step  of  gods — they  burn  like  the 
bush  on  Sinai,  white,  but  unconsumed. 

Still  greater  was  his  passion  when  he  k)st  himself  in 
nature.  Only  one  other  English  poet  surpassed  him  in 
this,  and  he,  in  surpassing  him,  drifted  into  a  frequent 
extravagance,  which  leads  us  back  to  Wordsworth  in 
the  end,  as  the  king  of  those  who  have  grasped  nature 


Tlu  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.         1 2 1 

closely  and  expressed  her  life  intensely.  For  ho  hod 
sobriety  in  the  centre  of  passion.  His  sense  of  fitness, 
his  sense  of  simplicity,  his  sense  of  temperance  as  the 
cestus  of  beauty,  ruled  his  most  passionate  moods  with 
nature. 

Nor  did  his  temperance  make  his  passion  less,  but 
more.  It  prevented  it  from  losing  itself  in  too  rapid 
a  flame.  It  intensified  it  by  pressure,  while  it  held 
its  unused  force  so  sternly  under  command  that  it 
could  be  directed. at  once  with  full  power  upon  any 
point  of  a  subject,  and  modified  so  as  to  give  the  just 
amount  of  power  to  each  point. 

By  this  calmness  in  the  midst  of  passion,  the  highest 
beauty  of  art  is  reached,  and  the  greatest  and  noblest 
pleasure  given. 

Now  these  which  are  the  qualities  of  beautiful  poetry 
are  the  qualities  also  of  the  beautiful  character,  and 
belong  to  human  nature  in  its  ideal.  They  ought, 
therefore,  to  have  belonged  to  Him  in  whom  we»beUeve 
that  human  nature  reached  not  only  its  highest  majesty 
but  its  highest  beauty. 

Take,  then,  the  first — simplicity.  It  is  not  of  the 
simplicity  of  Christ's  teaching  that  I  speak,  for  to  that 
I  have  aUuded  already,  but  of  the  quality  in  his  cha- 
racter which  corresponds  to  that  which  we  call  sim- 
plicity in  poetry.  That  which  is  simplicity  in  art  is 
purity  in  a  perfect  character. 

Now  the  beauty  of  Christ's  purity  was  first  in  this, 
that  those  who  saw  it,  saw  in  it  the  glory  of  moral 
victory. 

We  talk  of  the  beauty  of  innocence  in  a  child.     That 


122         The  Beauty  of  Chris fs  Character, 

was  not  the  beauty  of  Christ's  purity.  Exquisite  as 
it  is,  we  know  that  it  is  fleeting,  and  the  sense  of  its 
transiency  stains  our  pleasure.  Some  speak  of  the 
spiritual  beauty  which  belongs  to  the  untempted  life  of 
one  who  has  never  known  the  world,  which  shines  upon 
the  faces  of  those  saints  whom  Angelico  conceived  in 
his  cloistered  solitude.  Neither  was  that  the  beauty  of 
Christ's  purity. 

The  purity  of  Christ  was  purity  which  had  been 
subject  to  the  storm,  which  had  known  evil  and  over- 
come it,  which  had  passed  through  the  dusty  ways  of 
men,  and  received  no  speck  upon  its  white  robes.  A 
tempest  of  trial  had  only  driven  it,  like  the  snow  on 
Alpine  summits,  into  more  dazzling  spotlessness.  It 
was  beautiful  with  its  own  beauty ;  it  was  still  more 
beautiful,  in  that  it  stirred  in  men  the  sensation  of 
moral  power,  of  sustained  activity  of  soul. 

And  from  this  purity,  so  tried  and  so  victorious, 
arose  iwo  other  elements  of  moral  beauty,  perfect 
justice  and  perfect  mercy.  Innocence  cannot  be  just. 
It  does  not  know  good,  it  does  not  know  evil :  how 
can  it  judge  without  knowledge  ?  It  would  jiing  reward 
or  punishment  to  those  brought  before  it,  without  know- 
ing whether  the  reward  would  be  reward,  or  the  punish- 
ment punishment,  to  the  persons  on  whom  they  were 
bestowed.  It  could  never  apportion  mercy,  or  apportion 
justice,  to  different  degrees  of  penitence  or  sin*  There 
is  nothing  uglier  than  recklessness,  and  recklessness  is 
the  characteristic  of  the  judgments  of  innocence. 

Nor  is  the  untempted  saint  fit  to  judge.  He  does  not 
know  the  force  of  temptation.     He  is  severe  and  cruel 


The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.         123 

when  lio  seeks  to  be  just ;  lie  can  make  no  allowances ; 
his  mercy  ho  calls  weakness ;  he  insists  on  too  much 
penitence,  more  than  the  sinner  can  bear;  he  drives, 
by  the  very  force  of  rigid  goodness,  men  into  despair. 

But  Christ  is  able  to  be  just  and  yet  merciful,  because 
He  is  entirely  pure.  Having  known  evil  and  subdued  it. 
He  judges  from  perfect  knowledge.  He  suffered,  being 
tempted,  therefore  He  is  merciful,  knowing  the  force 
of  temptation ;  He  met  and  realised  in  battle  the  root 
principles  of  evil,  therefore  his  justice  is  stern  and 
unrelenting  when  He  sees  these  principles  ruling  the 
.\ives  of  men.  So  it  was  that  He  had  no  words  of  pity 
for  the  hypocrite,  the  root  of  whose  life  was  falsehood : 
the  only  thing  which  could  save  the  Pharisee  was 
unrelenting  condemnation.  So  it  was  that  He  had 
mercy  on  the  publican  whose  heart  He  saw  to  be  broken 
with  penitence,  and  on  the  woman  who  had  been  over- 
taken in  a  fault.  In  all  the  acts  of  the  Saviour  there 
is  no  act  and  no  words  so  beautiful — beautiful  for  their 
daring,  for  their  magnificent  trust  in  human  nature, 
for  their  magnificent  independence  of  the  opinion  of 
men,  for  their  perfect  marriage  of  justice  and  mercy — 
as  the  act  and  the  words  of  Christ  to  the  woman  taken 
in  adultery :  '  Woman,  hath  no  man  condemned  thee  ? ' 
*  No  man.  Lord.'  *  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee  :  go,  and 
sin  no  more.'     It  was  the  judgment  of  perfect  purity. 

This  was  not,  as  some  have  put  it,  a  divine  incapacity 
for  seeing  evil ;  it  was  a  divine  capacity  for  seeing  good 
through  evil.  *  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  they 
shall  see  God  ' — not  only  God  as  He  is  in  His  perfect 
being,  not  only  God  in  nature,  but  also  God  in  man* 


124         '^^^  Beauty  of  Chris  fs  Character. 

It  was  this  power  which  Christ  possessed  a»  the  result 
of  purity.  Whererer  there  was  a  shred  of  good,  a 
spark  of  the  Divine  in  the  lost  and  sinfnl,  Christ  saw 
it  hy  the  instinct  of  his  purity.  He  discovered  it  and 
drew  it  forth,  as  a  magnet  would  draw  from  a  heap  of 
chaff  one  needle-point  of  steeL  There  is  no  loveliness 
in  a  character  greater  than  this,  and  it  stamps  the' 
whole  of  the  Saviour'a  life.  K  you  would  win  it,  be 
pure  in  heart. 

(2.)  The  second  element  of  beauty  in  art  was  sen- 
suousness.  That  word  in  Milton's  sense  of  it  was 
entirely  noble  in  meaning.  Of  its  representative  in  a 
character  I  have  already  spoken  in  speaking  of  the 
sensibility  of  the  character  of  the  Saviour  to  impres- 
sions received  from  nature  and  from  man.  But  I  may 
add  this,  that  as  the  poet  produces  beautiful  work  out 
of  the  multitudinous  world  of  images  of  things  and 
feelings  which  he  has  received,  so  the  exquisiteness  of 
the  parables  and  of  the  words  of  Christ,  both  in  form 
and  expression,  was  the  direct  result  of  the  knowledge 
He  had  gained  from  this  quality  of  sensibility.  A 
world  of  natural  images  dwelt  within  Him ;  a  world  of 
varied  human  feelings,  received  from  all  the  men  and 
women  whom  He  had  met,  dwelt  within  Him  also. 
JChe  parables  unite  these  two  worlds  in  expression. 
They  make  nature  reflect  man,  and  man  receive  from 
nature.  They  make  all  the  doings  of  nature  explain 
the  life  of  man;  they  teach  the  life  of  man  to  find 
teaching  and  comfort  in  the  life  of  nature.  They  have 
even  a  deeper  thought  than  this — they  make  us  feel 
that  God  Himself  has  harmonised  us  to  our  habitation ; 


Tlu  Beatity  of  Christ's  Character.         \  25 

that  tlio  mind  of  man  is  fitted  to  the  external  world, 
and  the  external  world  to  the  mind  ;  and  that  through 
the  wedlock  of  the  intellect  and  the  spirit  of  man,  in  love 
and  holy  passir)n,'^  to  the  universe,  as  well  as  through 
reverence  to  Him  who  established  this  harmony  between 
us  and  nature,  we  reach,  whether  in  science  or  in  art, 
our  noblest  intellectual  height ;  and  in  religion,  so  far 
as  natural  religion  is  concerned,  our  noblest  spiritual 
life. 

He  who  walks  this  world,  conscious  of  that  inner 
harmony  between  himself  and  the  universe  of  which 
the  parables  are  the  expression,  walks  in  the  midst  of 
an  atmosphere  of  beauty.  '  The  living  presence  of  the 
earth'  waits  upon  his  steps,  and  her  presence  is  of 
divine  loveliness,  for  it  is  the  form  of  God's  idea. 
Everything  speaks  to  him.  He  sees  himself  in  all  he 
sees ;  but  it  is  himself  as  he  ought  to  be,  and  the  vi- 
sion is  inspiring,  not  degrading.  The  common  air 
he  breathes,  the  sunshine  and  the  rain,  the  growth  of 
plants,  the  sea  which  shimmers  and  the  clouds  which 
move  in  light,  speak  parables  to  him,  of  which  God  as 
a  Father  and  Manas  a"  child  are  the  interpretation; 
they  tell  him  that  in  common  life  he  may  find  his  first, 
perhaps  his  best  religion ;  that 

The  primal  duties  shine  aloft — like  stars  ; 
The  charities  which  soothe,  and  heal,  and  bless, 
^  Are  scattered  at  the  feet  of  men  like  flowers. 

To  him  who  has  this  secret  law  of  harmony,  the 
universe  imparts  '  authentic  tidings  of  invisible  things,* 

»  See  Preface  to  the  Excursion. 


126         The  Bemity  of  Christ's  Character. 

the  beauty  of  harmonious  variety,  the  beauty  of  eternal 
power,  the  beauty  of  activity  held  in  the  calm  of  order. 
He  lives  in  this  beauty,  and  he  grows  beautiful  by 
communion  with  it ;  be  lives  in  the  region  of  the  para- 
bles of  Christ. 

(3.)  The  third,  element  of  great  poetry  is  passion. 
We  may  transfer  it  directly  to  a  character  as  an 
element  of  beauty.  It  is  best  defined  as  the  power  of 
intense  feeling  capable  of  perfect  expression.  It  is 
the  source  of  the  beauty  of  energy  and  in  temperance 
is  its  lasting  charm. 

It  was  intense  feeling  of  the  weakness  and  sin 
of  man,  and  intense  joy  in  his  Father's  power  to  re- 
deem, which  produced  the  story  of  the  '  Prodigal  Son,' 
where  every  word  is  on  fire  with  tender  passion.  See 
how  it  comes  home,  even  now,  io  men ;  see  how  its 
profound  humanity  has  made  it  universal ! 

'  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  who  are  weary  and  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.'  How  that  goes  home  to  the 
deepest  want  of  the  race ;  how  deep  the  passion  which 
generalised  that  want  into  a  single  sentence;  how 
intense,  yet  how  pathetic — pathetic  because  intense — 
the  expression  of  it ;  how  noble  the  temperance  which 
stayed  at  the  single  sentence  and  felt  that  it  was 
enough. 

And  if  you  seek  for  the  silent  passion  of  action,  we 
find  it  in  many  forms  in  his  life.  They  speak  of 
intensity  of  feeling  at  once  realising  itself — from  the 
driven  flight  into  the  wilderness  to  the  vital  rush  of 
his  inward  glory  into  the  transfigured  expression  of 
his  form  upon  the  side  of  Hermon ;  from  the  moment 


The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character.  1 5  7 

when  He  stood  on  the  great  stairs  of  the  Temple,  crying, 
'  K  any  man  thirst,  let  him  come  unto  me  and  drink,* 
to  the  hour  when  He  wept  over  the  guilt  and  ruin  of 
his  nation;  from  the  awfulness  of  the  supreme  agony 
in  the  garden  to  the  last  cry  of  triumph  for  a  world 
redeemed  which  rose  out  of  the  abyss  of  death  upon 
the  cross.  In  all  it  was  passion  in  its  noblest  forms 
and  in  the  intensest  expression.  It  is  a  beauty  of 
character  which  passes  into  and  assumes  the  diadem 
of  sublimity. 

All  this  gives  the  impression  of  a  nature  inspired  by 
a  stream  of  ever-flowing  energy — of  a  nature  all  whose 
powers  were  in  vital  action.  It  is  this  easy,  natural 
activity,  this  instantaneousness  in  the  marriage  of  the 
thought  to  the  acf,  which  is  another  element  of  beauty, 
for  it  suggests,  not  only  passion,  but  the  harmony  of 
passions  and  absolute  healthiness  of  soul.  In  the 
midst  of  a  world  which  gives  a  false  glory  to  violent 
passion  and  likes  to  dwell  on  morbid  passion  in  its 
literature,  it  is  delightful  to  turn  to  the  perfectly  active 
yet  perfectly  healthy  soul  of  Christ;  its  intensity  of 
feeling  subdued  to  do  his  work,  so  that  He  could  both 
act  and  speak  to  the  point  at  once. 

Again  and  again  in  the  gospel  story  we  are  made  to 
feel  this  promptitude  and  keenness  of  Christ. 

The  right  thing  is  always  done  at  the  right  time, 
not  a  moment  too  late  or  too  early.  *  We  are  conscious 
of  the  fire  of  enthusiasm,  but  we  never  find  hurry; 
there  is  no  divergence  from  the  plan  of  life  under  un- 
regulated impulse ;  the  act  is  never  overstrained. 

The  right  thing  also  is  said  at  the  right  time,  and 


ftS         The  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character. 

said  with,  exquisite  knowledge  of  the  less  or  more  which 
might  have  spoiled  its  influence.  There  is  no  irritating 
repetition  of  reproof;  one  sharp  stern  phrase  is  spoken 
and  no  m(5i'e :  '  Get  thee  behind  me,  adversary ; '  '  Ye 
know  not  what  spirit  ye  are  of — and  then  silence. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  his  praise.  There  is  no 
flattery ;  the  central  point  worthy  of  praise  in  the  cha- 
racter, often  a  quite  unexpected  point,  is  seized  on  at 
once  and  brought  into  prominence.  '  Behold  an  Israel- 
ite indeed,  in  whom  is  no  guile ; '  '  I  have  not  found  so 
great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel ; '  '  She  loved  much ; ' — in 
all,  the  one  clear  sentence  which  revealed  the  man  to 
himself,  and  which  will  remain,  because  of  its  absolute 
fitness,  as  his  central  attribute  in  our  memory. 

This  is  the  beauty  of  energy,  the  child  of  passion,  in 
a  nature  perfectly  at  harmony  through  the  exercise  of 
temperance. 

But  Christ  has  been  accused  of  intemperance,  espe- 
cially in  his  severe  treatment  of  the  Pharisees.  If  this 
be  true,  perfect  beauty  of  charactei>  is  gone,  for  tem- 
perance, inasmuch  as  it  keeps  all  the  powers  of  the 
soul  from  extravagance,  '  is  the  girdle  of  beauty.'  But 
I  have  never  been  impressed  with  the  justice  of  this 
objection.  I  can  conceive  nothing  more  worthy  of 
indignation  than  Pharisaism.  In  all  its  forms  it  is  hate- 
ful; and  not  only  Christ,  but  every  teacher.  Pagan 
or  Christian,  in  proportion  as  he  loved  truth,  mercy, 
and  righteousness,  has  denounced  it  as  the  worst  of 
evils.  The  more  true,  and  pure,  and  human  a  man 
was,  the  more  indignation  would  he  feel  against  it, 
and  it  was  because  Christ  was  truer,  purer,  and  more 


The  Beauty  of  Chrisf^s  Character,        1 29 

human  thau  others,  that  He  spoke  more  strongly  than 
others. 

But  were  his  expressions  used  in  anger,  rather  than 
in  indignation?  If  so,  however  deserved,  they  were 
intemperate.  They  do  not  wear  that  aspect.  In 
anger,  reason  has  not  time  to  operate;  words  rush 
almost  unwittingly  to  the  lips.  Hence,  they  are  inco- 
herent ;  they  are  unjust ;  they  want  the  mark  of  deli- 
berate choice ;  they  run  on  in  unmeaning  declama- 
tion; they  do  not  hit  the  point,  they  do  not  sting. 
But  indignation,  being  a  noble  and  divine  quality,  is 
led  by  reason  and  is  the  servant  of  justice.  It  waits 
before  it  speaks.  Its  denunciation  is  calm,  deliberate, 
and  full ;  the  words  are  chosen  so  as  to  hit  the  point 
and  the  evil  hard,  and  in  the  centre ;  they  are  weighed 
so  as  to  be  scrupulously  just.  They  bear  the  stamp 
of  thought,  and  they  do  their  work,  making  the  heart 
on  which  they  faJl  writhe  with  shame  and  pain.  A 
certain  amount  of  fine  irony  often  goes  Vith  this  in- 
dignation, for  there  is  calm  at  its  root,  and  irony  is  the 
child,  in  such  matters,  of  indignation  and  calm. 

Now,  Christ's  words  to  the  Pharisees  have  all  the. 
marks  of  indignation  and  none  of  the  marks  of  anger. 
I  cannot  conceive  beauty  of  character  without  indigna- 
tion at  evil.  Purity  implies  it,  and  indignation,  by  its 
very  essence,  is  restrained  to  strict  justice,  laying  on  its 
scourge  exactly  with  the  requisite  severity  and  in  the  re- 
quisite place.  There  was  passion  in  the  words  of  Christ, 
but  it  was  divine  passion,  under  the  restraint  of  law. 
It  did  not  sin  against  temperance ;  nay,  it  derived  its 
force  from  temperance. 


1 30        TIu  Beauty  of  Christ's  Character. 

Lastly,  passion  and  energy,  limited  by  temperance, 
imply  repose  of  character.  As  we  cannot  attribute  re- 
pose to  that  which,  has  not  the  capability  of  energy, 
so  that  energy  is  not  noble  energy,  nor  is  it  directed 
by  temperance  in  the  midst  of  its  passion,  unless  it 
be  capable  of  profound  calm.  I  will  even  go  further, 
and  say  that  all  noble  moral  energy  roots  itself  in  moral 
calm.  INow,  as  in  all  art,  so  also  in  all  human  character, 
we  demand,  as  in  one  the  appearance,  so  also  in  the 
other  the  reality  of  repose,  as  a  primary  element  of 
beauty.  All  restlessness — a  very  different  thing  from 
vital  energy — is  ugly,  having  no  goal,  being  full  of 
vain  effort.  Activity  in  repose,  calm  in  the  heart  of 
passion,  these  things  are  of  the  essence  of  beauty. 

And  in  Him  in  whom  we  have  found  the  King  in  his 
beauty  this  peacefulness  was  profound.  His  activity 
grew  out  of  his  deep  quietude  of  trust  in  Jiis  Father's 
wiU.  It  mattered  little  to  Him  that  the  turbulence 
of  parties  surrounded  Him  and  the  wild  mob  of  Jeru- 
salem cried  for  his  death.  He  passed  on  in  the  calm 
of  one  to  whom  duty  was  all,  to  finish  the  work 
given  Him  to  do ;  content  quietly  to  live  or  quietly  to 
die,  unalarmed,  and  unimpatient,  for  his  Father's  law 
was  his  law,  and  his  life  and  death  were  hidden  in  the 
stillness  of  God's  will ;  consistent  in  self-rule,  because  He 
had  escaped  from  self  into  union  with  the  perfect  good ; 
satisfied  to  suffer,  for  He  reposed  upon  the  promise  and 
believed  in  the  love  of  his  Father.  This  is  the  final  touch 
of  beauty,  which  gathers  into  itself,  and  harmonises, 
all  the  others ;  and  hence  no  words  are  so  beautiful  as 
those  in  which,  having  perfect  rest  Himself,  He  bestows 


The  Deaidy  of  Christ's  Character,        1 3 1 

it  as  his  dying  legacy  on  men :  *  Peace  I  leave  with  you, 
peace  I  give  unto  you ;  not  as  the  world  giveth  givo  I 
unto  you ; '  and  repeats  it  as  his  resurrection  gift : 
*  Peace  be  unto  you.' 

Let  us  part  with  this  supreme  conception  in  our 
hearts.  In  the  midst  of  the  fevered  activity  and  unre- 
strained passion  of  our  life  in  this  great  city,  seek  for 
a  centre  of  calm.  Find  it  where  Christ  found  it,  in 
humble  trust  in  a  Father's  love ;  find  it  in  the  calm 
which  comes  of  duty  accepted  as  the  law  of  life,  duty 
to  your  heavenly  Father,  duty  to  your  brother-men. 
Find  it  in  resolute  obedience ;  so  that  the  spirit  of  that 
solemn  inscription  over  the  dead  at  Thermopylae  may  be 
true  of  you :  '  Stranger,  tell  the  Lacedaemonians  that 
we  lie  here  in  obedience  to  their  orders.'  Find  it  by 
realising  in  yourself,  through  union  with  Christ's  spirit 
and  Ghrist's  life,  that  deep  calm  of  his  which  translated 
noble  passions  into  noble  energy,  and  moved  his  energy 
forwa^ls  within  the  temperate  sphere  of  law.  So  will 
you  see  and  reflect  in  character  the  King  in  his  beauty. 
For  all  moral  loveliness,  and  all  spiritual,  lies  in  know- 
ing what  He  meant  when  He  said :  *  Come  unto  me, 
all  ye  that  labour,  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest.' 


132  Prayer  and  Natural  Law, 


PHAYUE  AND  NATURAL  LAW. 

*  Ye  ask,  and  receive  not,  because  ye  ask  amiss,  that  ye  may  consume 
it  upon  your  lusts.' — James  iv.  3. 

Prayer  is  in  its  plainest  meaning  a  petition  addressed 
to  God.  We  desire  Him  to  give  us  some  blessing,  to 
help  US  in  some  difficulty,  or  to  relieve  us  from  some 
pain.  But  this  meaning,  when  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  conception  of  the  absolute,  or  to  the  test  of 
modern  scientific  knowledge,  is  open  to  a  series  of 
objections.  To  escape  from  these  objections  pther 
meanings  have  been  given  to  prayer.  It  has  been 
said,  that  to  labour  is  to  pray :  it  has  been  said  that 
to  have  communion  with  God,  and  to  meditate  on 
Him,  is  to  pray :  it  has  been  said,  that  aspiration  is 
prayer.  But  however  true  these  definitions  may  be, 
they  are  not,  even  taking  them  all  together,  an  ade- 
quate definition,  as  long  as  they  omit  or  place  in  the 
background  the  idea  of  petition.  Nor  do  we  avoid 
the  metaphysical  and  scientific  difficulties  when  we 
ignore  petition  as  being  of  the  essence  of  prayer.  It  is 
and  will  always  remain  its  greatest  part. 

It  is  wiser,  then,  if  we  would  retain  prayer  as  an 
intellectual  conception  and  not  discredit  it  to  our- 
selves in  the  spiritual  world,  to  look  its  difficulties, in 


Prayer  atid  Natural  Law,  1 33 

the  face.  What  are  these  ?  Those  which  beset  it  in 
the  spiritual  and  moral  worlds  arise  from  our  idea  of 
the  unchangeability  of  God.  In  theology  and  meta- 
physics the  further  one  f^ets  from  an  idolatrous  and 
superstitious  idea  of  God,  the  more  one  conceives  of 
Him  as  unable  to  alter  His  principles  of  action  with- 
out changing  His  own  nature.  Suppose  for  a  moment 
such  a  change  in  God,  and  the  whole  spiritual  world 
would  fall  to  pieces  ;  nay,  more.  He  would  then — and 
the  phrase  is  not  irreverent  for  it  is  founded  on  His 
own  self-revelation — destroy  Himself. 

The  difficulties  which  beset  prayer  as  petition,  in 
connection  with  God  as  the  Lord  of  the  spiritual  and 
moral  world,  have  been  discussed  from  generation  to 
generation,  and  on  the  whole  have  been  fairly  answered. 
I  leave  these,  then,  behind,  and  take  up  the  other  side  of 
the  problem,  for  at  present  a  new  set  of  difficulties  lie 
in  our  path,  and  occupy  public  interest.  Prayer  has 
come  into  contact  with  scientific  discovery,  and  I  ex- 
press the  problem  in  theological  terms  when  I  say  that 
the  unchangeability  of  God  as  Lord  of  the  physical 
world  is  expressed  in  modem  science  by  the  law  of 
the  conservation  of  force,  and  that  that  law  denies  the 
power  of  prayer  to  alter  any  natural  sequence. 

The  lamitself  is  our  statement  of  the  fact  that  all 
the  forces  of  the  universe — light,  heat  and  electricity, 
mechanical  and  chemical  force,  and  the  rest — are  con- 
vertible into  one  another,  and  that  the  whole  sum  of 
them  is  a  constant  quantity.  Force  changes  its  form, 
but  it  is  always  the  same,  neither  more  nor  less.  No 
addition  can  be    made    to   it,  nothing  can  be  taken 


1 34  Prayer  and  NatH^ccl  Law. 

away  from  it.  It  can  be  infinitely  converted,  it  cannot 
— unless  we  suppose  the  intervention  of  a  miracle — be 
created.  Every  change  in  nature  is  then  a  matter  of 
necessity.  'Every  change ;  — that  is  the  point  which  so 
many  seem  altogether  unable  to  realise.  There  are 
certain  changes  which  no  one  would  dream  of  asking 
God  to  make.  No  one  would  be  likely  to  pray  that 
for  the  sake  of  relieving  our  pauper  population  by 
additional  land,  all  the  lakes  in  the  country  should 
be  suddenly  dried  up ;  or  that  there  should  be  two 
harvests  in  one  year  during  a  famine.  This,  men 
would  say,  would  be  miraculous,  and  we  have  no  right 
to  demand  miracles  of  God.  But,  if  the  doctrine  of 
the  conservation  of  force  be  true,  when  we  pray  for  the 
fall  of  a  single  shower  of  five  minutes  in  length,  or  the 
change  of  the  direction  of  the  wind  by  a  single  point, 
or  the  evaporation  of  the  faintest  waft  of  cloud,  by  the 
independent  will  of  God,  we  are  asking  for  a  miracle, 
and  for  as  real  and  tremendous  a  disturbance  of 
natural  law  as  if  we  had  asked  the  postponement  of 
the  rising  of  the  sun,  or  the  sudden  removal  of  the 
moon  from  the  sky.  There  is  nothing  little,  or  no- 
thing great,  in  the  motions  of  the  universe.  The  de- 
mand for  the  creation  of  the  smallest  conceivable  wave 
of  new  force,  is  as  serious  a  demand  as  t]jat  for  the 
creation  of  force  equivalent  to  that  which  builds  up  a 
volcano  in  a  night.  In  one  case  and  the  other  we 
pray  for  a  miracle,  and  for  miracles  equal  in  import- 
ance. 

Xow  apply  this  to  prayers  for  rain,  and  the  like.     A 
plague  of  rain,  as  it  is  called,  falls  upon  England.     We 


Prayer  and  Natural  Law,  1 35 

offer  up  a  prayer  for  its  removal.     It  is  worth  while  to 
;isk  ourselves  what  we  ai*e  demanding. 

The  antecedents  which  produced  a  month's  rain  here 
took  place  some  time  ago  in  the  equatorial  and  polar 
regions.  The  vapours  taken  up  by  the  heat  in  the 
south  equatorial  regions  were  swept  northwards  by  the 
upper  current  which  descends  bearing  the  waters  in  its 
bosom  to  become  a  surface  current  in  the  temperate 
zone.  But  in  descending  it  meets  the  surface  polar 
current  which  is  now  rising  to  become  an  upper 
current.  The  cold  current  condenses  the  vapour  in 
the  warm  current,  and  rain  falls.  Now  the  amount  of 
rain  depends  on  the  amount  of  water  taken  up  as 
vapour  in  the  seas  south  of  the  equator,  and  on  the 
amount  of  condensing  cold  sent  southwards  from  the 
polar  seas  ;  and  the  amount  of  heat  which  raised  the 
vapour,  and  of  cold  which  made  it  fall  in  rain  depended 
on  conditions  which  took  place  the  year  before,  and 
those  on  conditions  which  took  place  the  year  before 
that,  and  so  on  backwards  as  far  as  thought  can  reach. 
The  amount  of  rain  which  fell  last  week  in  England  is 
to  the  millionth  of  an  inch  the  exact  result  of  a  series 
of  antecedents  which  not  only  took  place  some  time 
ago  about  the  equator  and  the  pole,  but  which  go  back  to 
the  very  beginning  of  things. 

When  we  pray,  then,  that  God  would  cause  the  rain 
to  cease,  we  are  asking  one  of  two  things — either  that 
He  would  work  a  miracle  for  us,  or,  if  we  abjure  that 
wish,  that  He  would  change,  not  circumstances  as  they 
exist  at  present,  but  all  the  natural  phenomena  which 
have  existed  on  the  globe,  which  is  manifestlv  absurd. 


1 36  Prayer  and  Natural  Lazv. 

When  I  think  of  these  things,  I  find  it  absolutely 
impossible,  without  the  grossest  violation  of  my  reason, 
to  pray  for  or  against  rain,  with  a  belief  that  God 
will  answer  my  prayer.  But  you  will  say  that  God 
could  do  it  if  He  liked.  1  do  not  say  No  to  that, 
but  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  that  I  should  not 
dare  to  ask  Him  to  change  the  order  of  the  universe 
at  my  desire.  Once  a  man  is  acquainted  with  the 
processes  of  nature,  and  realises  what  the  conservation 
of  force  means,  and  the  results  which  would  follow  on 
the  creation  of  the  smallest  possible  amount  of  new 
force — results,  the  end  of  which  he  could  never  see, 
which  little  here  might  be  stupendous  elsewhere  (for 
the  fall  of  a  miraculous  shower  here  might  necessitate 
an  earthquake  elsewhere  and  destroy  20,000  souls) — 
he  would  not  dare  to  pray  for  five  minutes'  rain  which 
was  not  naturally  coming.  And  if  he  believed  that 
God  would  grant  his  prayer,  would  he  dare,  ought  he  to 
dare,  to  meet  the  tremendous  responsibilities  involved  ? 
I  could  not  ask  God  to  create  new  force,  even  if  I  be- 
lieved He  would  do  so. 

But  there  is  another  and  more  plausible  objection  to 
this  rigid  view  that  no  sequence  is  or  can  be  changed. 

It  may  be  urged,  that  as  human  will  can  modify 
the  future  results  of  things  occurring  now  by  changing 
the  conditions  under  which  those  results  will  develope 
themselves — as,  for  example,  I  could  change  the  future 
climate  of  a  country  by  cutting  down  its  forest — so  it  may 
be  a  spiritual  law  that  the  human  will,  acting  on  God's 
will  through  His  appointed  channel  prayer,  may  cause 
God  to  interpose  conditions  which  will  change  the  mode 


Prayer  and  Natural  Law,  1 3  7 

in  wliich  existing  results  are  taking  place.  But  the  two 
members  of  the  comparison  are  not  equivalent.  The 
modification  of  climate  by  man  is  the  result  of  natural 
forces  naturally  used,  through  a  period  of  many  years. 
The  modification  of  existing  climatal  phenomena — the 
heat  which  now  prevails,  for  exatnple — would  be  the 
result  of  a  sudden  interposition ;  it  would  not  be  natural 
but  prseternatural — it  would  be  a  miracle. 

But  it  may  be  again  replied  :  God  could  do  it  within 
the  sphere  of  His  own  laws.  He  could  introduce  a 
higher  law,  or  rearrange  existing  laws  in  a  new  com- 
bination, and  so  modify  the  fall  of  rain  or  banish  the 
pestilence,  and  doing  so  without  a  violation  of  law,  it 
would  not  be  a  miracle. 

I  answer,  that  the  only  true  statement  of  a  miracle 
which  can  be  received,  is  that  it  is  the  result  of  a  pre* 
arrangement  by  which  the  ordinary  course  of  nature 
changes  step,  as  it  were,  for  a  moment,  by  the  will 
of  God,  for  some  great  spiritual  result.  A  miracle 
conceived  of  as  a  violation  of  order  is  an  absolute  im- 
possibility. The  alteration,  therefore,  of  the  course  of 
the  weather  by  God's  rearrangement  into  a  new  com- 
bination of  existing  phenomena,  is  a  miracle  with  this 
exception,  that  it  is  not  accredited  to  the  conscience  of 
mankind  by  having  as  its  end  a  great  and  obvious 
spiritual  result. 

In  whatever  way  we  look  at  the  question,  then,  we 
pray  for  a  miracle  when  we  pray  for  the  slightest  change 
in  the  normal  state  of  the  universe. 

Are  such  unknown  miracles  now  continually  per- 
formed at  the  call  of  individual  men  who  do  not  sea 

r 


1 38  Prayer  and  Natural  Law, 

beyond  tlie  present?  Those  who  still  believe  that  the 
miraculous  is  common  in  nature  may  pray  with  perfect 
consistency  for  rain,  or  fair  weather,  but  they  ought 
clearly  to  understand  that  they  are  asking  God  to  per- 
form miracles. 

But  those  who  cannot  believe  this,  those  who  hold 
tha.t  a  miracle  is  derogatory  to  the  true  idea  of  God, 
unless  it  is  performed  for  great  and  ascertainable 
spiritual  ends — ends  which  appeal  to  our  reason  and 
excuse  the  miracle — cannot  pray  for  rain,  or  for  fair 
weather,  or  for  the  sudden  removal  of  a  pestilence, 
without  idolatry. 

I  do  not  say,  I  need  scarcely  assert  this,  that  God 
could  not  perform  continuous  miracles  at  the  instance 
of  prayer,  for  I  believe  in  a  Personal  Will  which 
directs  the  universe  towards  an  ultimate  good ;  but 
I  do  say  that  it  is  to  the  la^st  degree  improbable  that 
He  would  do  so,  and  that  if  He  did  do  so,  we  could 
have  no  security.  !N'atural  laws  would  be  then  at 
the  mercy  of  every  religious  man.  Some  extremely 
good  and  spiritual  persons  are  very  imprudent  in  the 
practical  work  of  the  world.  If  their  prayer  about 
rain,  fine  weather,  thunderstorms,  pestilence,  and  other 
things  is  answered,  and  answered  in  accordance  with  a 
spiritual  law,  so  that,  in  fact,  by  the  hypothesis,  it  must 
he  answered,  what  a  state  of  utter  confusion  we  should 
be  in  !  We  could  not  be  certain  of  the  sun  rising  at  the 
proper  time ;  we  could  not  carry  out  with  confidence 
any  course  of  action  founded  on  the  assumption  of  the 
constancy  of  natural  law. 

I  do  not  deny  miracles.     On  the  contrary,  by  deny- 


Prayer  and  Natural  Law,  1 39 

ing  the  existence  of  continuous  miraculous  action,  the 
cause  of  miracles  is  saved  from  utter  overthrow.  I 
maintain,  given  the  idea  of  a  personal  king  of  nature, 
and  men,  that  it  is  not  only  conceivable,  but  to  be 
expected,  that  at  certain  great  crises  of  human  history 
miracles  should  take  place,  with  the  purpose  of  initiating 
a  new  spiritual  era  and  for  the  salvation  of  the  race  of 
men,  to  redeem  whom  the  sacrifice  of  the  whole  order 
of  the  material  universe  were  a  price  as  small  as  one 
human  soul  is  inconceivably  more  valuable  than  the 
whole  realm  of  that  which  we  call  matter. 

But  to  spread  these  miracles  over  the  wholo  of  our 
human  history  is  not  only  to  destroy  the  very  idea  of  a 
miracle,  but  to  render  the  past  miracles  objects  of 
the  gravest  doubt,  by  making  the  present  supposed 
miracles  absurd.  I  do  not  therefore  believe  that  God 
interferes  in  any  extraordinary  manner  with  the  usual 
course  of  nature.  I  do  not  believe  that  prayer  does 
either  bring  or  restrain  rain :  I  do  not  think  that  it 
can  check  the  cholera  or  divert  the  lightning.  At  the 
same  time  I  believe  that  God  could  stay  the  rain  and 
dismiss  the  pestilence,  if  it  were  His  will,  at  the  voice 
of  prayer.  He  may  do  so  for  all  I  know,  but  it  would 
make  me  miserable  to  think  that  ifc  were  so. 

Directly,  then,  we  ought  not  to  pray  for  interference 
with  the  course  of  nature.  But  now  another  question 
comes  in.  Is  it  impossible  to  influence  the  harvest, 
or  to  avert  a  pestilence  indirectly,  through  prayer  ?  Has 
prayer  a  legitimate  field  of  influence  in  connection  with 
physical  occurrences?  I  think  it  has,  and  in  this 
way.     God  is  the  source  of  all  thought  in  the  brain  and 


1 40  Prayer  and  Natura I  Laio, 

of  all  true  intuitions  in  imagination  and  spirit,  as  He 
is  the  source  of  all  force  in  nature.  He  has  made,  we 
know,  the  force  of  nature  a  constant  quantity.  We  are 
nowhere  told  that  He  has  made  the  force  of  thought 
or  the  power  of  imagination  constant.  We  are  told 
that  He  is  constantly  giving  grace  to  the  spirit ;  we  infer 
that  He  is  constantly  pouring  upon  men  new  thought 
and  new  power.  Grace  is  given  at  the  call  of  prayer ;  we 
may  infer  that,  certain  conditions  being  fulfilled,  ideas 
are  suggested  by  Him  also  to  the  brain,  and  noble 
thoughts  to  the  heart,  and  energy  bestowed  upon  the 
will.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  His  inspiring 
power  has  ceased  to  work,  or  that  it  is  confined  to 
spiritual  things.  It  is  by  His  inspiration  that  the 
artist  paints,  that  the  politician  thinks  aright  for  the 
country,  that  the  poet  creates,  that  the  philosopher 
conjectures  and  then  proves  the  laws  of  the  universe. 
The  influence  of  God's  spirit  upon  man's  spirit  is  in- 
finite. The  influence  of  God's  thought  upon  man's 
thought  I  believe  also  to  be  unbounded.  It  is  in  this 
realm  that  prayer  is  of  avail.  Suppose  that  long-con- 
tinued rain  threatens  England  with  a  bad  harvest.  We 
ought  not  to  pray  that  the  rain  should  cease,  but  we 
may  pray  that  God  would  give  intelligence  and  activity 
to  farmers  that  they  may  make  the  best  of  their  op- 
portunities ;  we  may  ask  God  to  inspire  the  scientific 
chemists  to  invent  such  new  modes  of  agriculture  as 
will  reduce  the  evils  of  heavy  rain  to  the  least  possible 
quantity ;  or  we  might  have  prayed  in  times  of  Protec- 
tion that  God  would  inspire  with  tenfold  force  and 
energy  the  leaders  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law  League.     We 


Prayer  and  Natural  Law,  1 4 1 

may  pray,  in  short,  either  that  men  may  change  their 
relation  to  unchanging  law,  or  that  they  may  be  led  to 
pass  measures,  or  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
the  universe,  so  as  to  range  themselves,  not  against, 
but  on  the  side  of  law.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  such 
prayer  is  as  powerful  as  it  is  legitimate,  and  that  God 
will  answer  it. 

Take,  again,  the  case  of  pestilence.  It  is  asking 
amiss  to  pray  that  God  will  take  it  away  from  us 
suddenly,  arbitrarily.  As  long  as  the  cause*  which 
produce  and  aggravate  it  are  in  existence  here,  it  mu8t 
come,  and  all  the  prayers  in  the  world  will  not  keep  it 
oflf.  Nay,  it  would  be  infinitely  the  worse  for  us,  if 
our  prayers  succeeded  in  keeping  it  away.     • 

But  to  pray  that  God  would  inspire  men  of  intelli- 
gence with  keenness  of  observation  and  steadiness  of 
investigation  in  order  that  they  may  discover  the 
causes  which  awake  and  stimulate  the  pestilence ;  that 
He  may  inspire  men  of  science  with  those  happy 
thoughts  which,  like  Jenner's,  all  but  put  an  end  to  a 
disease;  that  He  may  stir  a  nation  up  to  vigorous 
measures  to  destroy  those  conditions  which  give  viru- 
lence to  a  pestilence ;  this  is  a  legitimate  field  for  a 
prayer  which  asks  for  that  which  it  believes  it  will  re- 
ceive. Such  prayers  have  force,  such  prayers  do  modify, 
not  directly,  but  indirectly  through  the  efibrt  of  man, 
the  course  of  the  universe. 

"We  know  that  God  does  not  interfere  with  the  order 
of  the  universe ;  we  all  but  know  that  He  does  con- 
tinually interfere  with  the  thoughtful  and  spiritual 
life  of  man:  and  the  interference  in  the  latter  case 


142  Prayer  and  Nahiral  Law. 

seems  to  us  as  natural,  as  lawful,  and  as  probable  as 
the  interference  in  the  former  would  seem  to  us  preter- 
natural, lawless,  and  improbable.  For  what  are  we 
praying  for  ?  We  are  not  praying  against  law,  we  are 
not  dashing  our  heads  against  the  dead  wall  of  the 
universe ;  we  are  not  bringing  our  prayers  into  direct 
opposition  with  all  that  science  teaches  us.  We  are, 
on  the  contra,ry,  praying  that  the  Father  of  lights, 
the  God  of  all  knowledge,  may  enable  us  to  understand 
His  laws  better,  may  kindle  our  intelligence  so  that  we 
may  go  with,  not  against,  the  current  of  the  motions  of 
the  universe;  may  bring  the  impulse  of  our  heart  in 
prayer  into  accordance  with  that  revelation  of  Himself 
in  nature,»the  high-priests  of  which  are  the  men  of 
science.  We  are  praying  that,  knowing  law,  we  may  be 
able  by  our  knowledge  to  lessen  evil.  I  do  not  think 
that  there  is  any  natural  philosopher  who  would  say 
that  this  use  of  prayer  was  a  sin  against  the  law  of  the 
conservation  of  force 

In  conclusion,  ougnt  we  to  do  away  with,  ruthlessly, 
all  prayer  which  asks  of  God  to  relieve  us  of  physical 
misfortune?  Ought  we  to  refrain  from  praying  for 
fine  weather  when  one  we  love  dearly  is  at  sea,  or  to 
check  the  petition  on  the  lips  when  those  who  make 
our  being  rich  are  exposed  to  pestilence  ?  That  would 
seem  too  hard  for  the  human  heart  in  its  moment  of 
agony  and  suspense ;  and  the  paradox  is  that  even 
when  we  have  no  hope,  even  when  we  know  that  God 
will  not  change  His  laws,  we  ask  Him  to  do  so  for  us. 
There  is  a  natural  rush  of  the  heart  into  petition  which 
it  would  be  spiritual  suicide  to  check. 


Prayer  and  Natural  Law,  1 43 

Listen  to  a  parable.  A  certain  ruler  had  two  servants, 
and  said  nnto  them,  *  Labour  every  day  in  the  fields 
from  morn  till  eventide,  or  be  imprisoned  for  a  time.' 
Now  it  came  to  pass  upon  a  certain  day  when  the  sun 
was  hot,  that  both  the  servants  fell  asleep  and  woke 
only  as  evening  fell.  They  heard  their  master  coming 
in  and  were  called  to  come  before  him :  and  the  first 
came  in  and  said,  *  Master,  no  prayers  can  move  thee,' 
and  in  angry  silence  took  his  sentence  :  and  the  other 
heard,  and  knew  his  master  to  be  faithful  to  his  law, 
but  because  he  loved  him  he  could  not  be  silent,  but 
ran  and  fell  at  his  master's  feet  and  prayed,  saying, 
'  Release  me  of  the  prison.'  And  his  master  smiled  on 
him,  and  said, '  I  cannot ;  take  him  away.'  And  he  arose 
and  went,  but  as  he  went  his  heart  was  lightened,  and 
he  said  to  himself,  '  The  pain  at  my  heart  is  gone,  for 
I  have  spoken,  and  my  master  has  smiled  on  me.'  And 
he  thought  of  his  master's  inexorable  order,  and  as  he 
thought,  it  grew  beautiful  in  his  ej'es,  even  while  he 
suffered  in  the  prison.  But  his  fellow-labourer  was 
more  angry  every  day  with  his  master,  and  the  prison 
grew  darker  as  he  chafed  against  a  law  which  would 
not  forfeit  punishment. 

So  is  prayer,  when  the  inexorable  laws  of  the  universe 
threaten  your  life  or  the  life  of  one  you  love.  Make 
no  use  of  it,  and  your  heart  breaks  from  the  passion  of 
hidden  grief,  or  grows  bitter  from  the  change  of  grief 
into  a'nger.  But  use  it,  pour  out  your  wild  petition  at 
your  Father's  feet,  even  though  you  know  it  is  useless, 
and  the  expression  gives  relief.  The  perilous  stuff  is 
lifted  off,  and  you  are  able  to  bear  the  new  pain  with  the 


1 44  Prayer  and  Na tu ra I  Law, 

old  courage.  You  have  cast  jour  care  upon  a  Father,  and 
though  He  does  not  stay  the  blow.  He  smiles  upon  you, 
and  the  prison  of  your  sorrow  is  made  bright  with  the 
thought  of  His  love.  A  strange  conviction  of  security 
comes  upon  your  life.  '  He  will  not  err  from  order,'  you 
say,  '  even  to  relieve  me  of  my  pain ;  I  can  therefore 
trust  Him  as  I  could  not  trust  Him  if  I  thought  my 
weak  and  ignorant  will  could  bend  His  ■  all-wise  will, 
directed  by  His  love.  His  love  ! — yes,  I  feel  that  His 
love  would  not  be  worth  having,  could  not  be  trusted 
were  it  not  one  with  unchangeability.'  In  this  way, 
we  learn  slowly  to  grow  into  harmony  with  His  will,  to 
submit  to  it  with  contentment  mingled  with  the  pain 
we  suffer,  to  say  to  ourselves,  '  Better  that  His  perfect 
will  should.guide  me,  than  that  I  should  be  the  victim 
of  my  own  imperfect  will.'  The  result  of  that  is  peace. 
Therefore,  pray,  for  it  relieves  you  by  expression — it 
brings  God's  fatherhood  and  all  its  infinite  comfort 
home  to  the  heart ;  it  leads  to  the  peace  which  comes 
of  recognising  that  you  are  in  the  hands  of  unchangeable 
affection  directed  by  unchangeable  Eight. 

Lastly.  Prayer  at  such  moments  produces  change  of 
mind  in  you  towards  the  suffering  you  endure.  The 
prison  seemed  terrible  to  the  servant,  but  when  he  got 
there,  it  was  not  what  he  expected.  His  prayer  and  the 
smile  he  had  won  had  altered  the  relation  of  his  feel- 
ing towards  the  punishment,  and  alteration  of  character 
changes  things,  not  in  themselves,  but  to  us.  A  man 
is  perishing,  I  will  suppose,  in  a  tempest.  His  wildest 
prayer,  he  knows,  cannot  save  him  or  his  wife,  folded 
in  his  last  embrace.     But  natural  feeling  wiU  have  its 


Prayer  and  Natural  Law,  145 

way,  and  the  prayer,  Save  us,  our  God,  rushes  to  his 
lips.  They  are  not  saved,  the  sea  drinks  up  their  life 
— but  it  is  no  dream,  but  told  by  many  a  survivor,  that 
in  the  ghastliest  wreck  there  have  been  those  over  whose 
faces  after  prayer  there  has  stolen  an  expression  of  un- 
utterable peace  and  joy.  Words  have  been  spoken, 
which  said  that  death  had  become  beautiful,  that  spirits 
brought  into  harmony  by  prayer  with  the  will  of  a  Father, 
and  beholding  the  smile  upon  His  face,  had  seen,  by  a 
wondrous  triumph  over  all  that  is  terrible  to  man,  in  the 
raging  sea  and  the  terror  of  the  midnight  hurricane,  only 
the  vision  of  perfect  love,  and  died  as  men  die  in  happy 
sleep.  In  this  way  the  necessary  expression  of  impas- 
sioned feeling  in  prayer,  which  is  the  poetry  of  the 
spirit,  changes  our  relation  to  suffering,  and  so  changes 
suffering  itself  into  peace  or  joy. 

And  now,  to  sum  up  all  these  things.  We  cannot,  dare 
not,  ought  not  to  ask  God  to  change  the  order  of  nature, 
with  any  expectation  that  He  will  grant  our  prayer — yet, 
we  must  use  such  prayers  for  the  sake  of  expression  of 
feeling.  And  in  so, praying  to  God  as  our  Father,  we  do 
get  rid  of  half  our  suffering,  though  not  of  that  which 
causes  our  suffering,  and  even,  in  a  further  result,  change 
our  pain,  our  punishment,  or  our  misfortune,  into  causes 
of  the  peace  and  joy  which  flow  from  the  realisation 
of  His  Presence  with  us  who  is  the  Lover  of  our  souls. 


146  The  Force  of  Prayer, 


TUB  FORCE  OF  PMAYER. 

*  Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you ;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find ;  knock,  and 
it  shall  be  opened  unto  you.' — Matt.  yii.  7. 

The  key-note  of  my  text  is  the  force  of  Prayer,  and  it  is 
our  subject  this  morning.  "We  spoke  not  long  ago  of 
the  difficulties  between  prayer  and  science,  and  I  en- 
deavoured to  find  a  common  ground  on  which  both 
could  endure  the  existence  of  the  other. 

Our  decision  was,  that  if  the  constancy  of  force  be 
true,  those  who  pray  for  the  slightest  change  of  sequence 
pray  for  a  miracle.  When  we  pray  for  a  shower  of 
rain,  we  ask  for  as  great  a  miracle  as  the  levelling  of 
Monte  Rosa  to  a  plain.  There  is  no  large  or  small  in 
nature,  except  to  us — and  a  change  infinitely  small  to 
us  may  produce  immeasurable  results.  Unless  we  are 
prepared,  then,  to  declare  that  miracles  are  things 
of  daily  occurrence — and  that  destroys  the  notion  of  a 
miracle — unless  we  are  prepared  to  hand  ov^r  the  order 
of  the  weather  to  the  wants  and  freaks  of  religious 
men,  we  must  give  up  imagining  that  our  prayer  can 
change  the  order  of  nature,  or  that  God  will  change  it 
at  the  instance  of  our  prayer.  Prayers  for  rain,  for  fine 
weather,  and  the  whole  class  of  prayers  which  deal  with 
physical  changes,  are  impotent  so  far  as  these  physical 


The  Fonc  of  Prayer,  147 

changes  are  concerned.  Prayer,  unless  we  assume  a 
miracle,  has  never  altered  and  does  not  alter  a  single 
physical  sequence.  It  has  no  direct  influence  on  nature. 
The  question  then  arose,  whether  it  had  any  indirect 
influence,  or  whether  a  prayer  of  this  class  was  of  any 
use  whatever.  We  were  forced  to  consider  this,  for  we 
were  met  by  the  fact  that  the  human  heart  in  difficul- 
ties arising  from  physical  causes  naturally  rushed  into 
prayer.  It  was  scarcely  possible,  we  thought,  that  this 
natural  impulse  had  no  meaning  and  no  end.  I 
attempted  to  give  an  answer  to  that  question,  but  as  I 
left  it  partly  unexplained,  I  will  now  add  enough,  I 
hope,  to  make  it  clear. 

Though  prayer  does  not  change  law,  it  changes  the 
relation  of  men  to  law,  not  physically,  but  spiritually. 
Take  for  example  a  national  prayer  against  a  pesti- 
lence. It  will  not  take  away  the  pestilence,  but  when  a 
whole  mass  of  men  pray  for  one  thing,  attention  is 
directed  to  it,  enquiry  is  set  on  foot,  unity  of*  action  is 
supported,  and  the  pestilence  is  checked  by  the  discovery 
of  its  causes  and  their  destruction.  But  if  prayer  only 
did  that,  it  would  do  no  more  than  a  few  vigorous 
speeches  made  by  physicians  might  do.  It  does  more. 
It  puts  in  motion  the  mighty  engine  of  moral  feel- 
ing ;  it  makes  every  man  conscious  of  his  national 
responsibility  to  God  for  the  health  of  the  nation ;  it 
kindles  the  charity  which  devotes  itself  to  the  sick,  the 
faith  which  supports  endeavour ;  it  makes  each  man  feel 
his  sinfulness  and  his  need  of  God,  and  his  connection 
with  a  Father.  A.nd  as  a  consequence  of  these  feelings 
a  higher  tone  pervades  and  a  higher  spirit  fills  the 


14S  The  Fo7xe  of  Prayer. 

general  life  of  the  people,  and  the  whole  effort  against 
the  pestilence  is  assisted  by  the  immense  force  which 
belongs  to  the  spiritual  power  of  men.  In  this  way, 
prayer  helps  to  change  man's  relation  to  law,  helps  to 
put  him  on  the  side  of  law.  Once  on  its  side,  he  con- 
quers the  pestilence  according  to  law.  • 
Again,  we  said  that  though  it  was  impossible,  without 
a  miracle,  to  alter  physical  phenomena,  and  therefore 
useless  if  not  too  daring  to  ask  God  to  do  so,  yet  that  in 
the  case  of  scarcity,  we  might  ask  God  to  awake  the 
energy  and  arouse  the  industry  of  the  farmers ;  in  the 
case  of  pestilence  to  lead  scientific  men  to  discovery  of 
its  causes,  and  in  the  case  of  both  to  inspire  those  who 
govern  w^ith  wise  measures.  This  was,  we  thought,  a 
legitimate  prayer,  for  God  acts  directly  on  the  spirit 
and  intellect  of  men.  But  it  has  been  objected  to  me 
that  this  making  of  g»  lazy  farmer  energetic,  or  the 
inspiration  of  an  idea  into  a  statesman,  is  in  itself  a 
miracle.  JE  cannot  quite  discover  the  ground  of  the 
objection,  but  I  suppose  that  it  is  founded  on  the  fact 
that  thought  and  emotion  are  accompanied  by  vital 
changes  in  the  brain  matter,  and  therefore  that  the 
introduction  from  without  of  new  thought  is  in  fact 
equivalent  to  the  introduction  of  new  force.  But  this 
goes  upon  the  supposition,  of  which  no  proof  can  be  given, 
that  motion  in  the  brain  is  thought  and  feeling.  We 
certainly  can  conceive  of  them  as  distinct  from  physical 
phenomena,  though  in  us  they  may  always  be  attended 
with  physical  changes.  Because  the  thought  that  two 
and  two  make  four  is  accompanied  by  an  atomic  change, 
it   does  not   follow   that   that  atomic   change   is  the 


The  Force  of  Prayer.  1 49 

thoup^lit.  When  a  man  does  a  gracious  act  to  a  woman 
and  she  blushes  with  gratitude,  or  love,  a  series  of  vital 
changes  takes  place,  but  it  cannot  be  proved  that  the 
vital  changes  are  gratitude  and  love.  Therefore  I  have 
a  perfect  right  to  say  at  present,  that  the  suggestion 
of  a  thought  to  a  man's  mind  by  God,  or  the  awaking 
in  him  of  a  strong  emotion,  does  not  interfere  with  the 
constancy  of  force.  It  does  not  add  new  force  to  the 
sum  of  force,  but  it  does  do  this,  it  does  make  the  modes 
of  force  interchange,  the  play  of  force  within  its  circle 
more  rapid.  But  it  will  be  said  that  force  cannot  alter 
its  form  without  a  previous  touch  of  force,  and  that 
therefore  the  suggestion  of  thought  which  alters  the 
condition  of  vital  forces  must  be  itself  an  introduction 
of  new  force,  and  therefore  impossible.  Well,  this  is 
just  the  point  where  we  get  into  the  darkness.  When 
I  will  to  do  a  duty,  I  set  up  a  series  of  vital  changes, 
but  in  willing  alone,  have  I  intruded  something  new 
into  the  close-packed  realm  of  force  ?  or  is  my  will 
itself  a  mode  of  physical  force  ?  It  seems  to  me,  no  ; 
it  seems  to  others,  yes.  At  least  it  is  not  proved  one 
way  or  another,  and  till  the  materialist  has  given  me 
fuU  proof  of  his  position,  I  cannot  be  said  to  demand 
a  miracle,  when  I  say  that  God  speaks  directly  to  the 
spirit  of  man. 

Moreover,  this  which  is  said  to  be  a  miracle  is  done 
every  day  by  man  to  man.  A  single  sentence  from  the 
lips  of  a  scientific  man  has  stirred  a  whole  series  of  new 
thoughts  in  another.  A  verse  of  the  Bible  has  changed 
a  blasphemer  into  a  penitent.  A  great  painting  has 
consoled  a  sorrowful  soul.     Love  has  made  the  coward 


1 50  The  Force  of  Prayer, 

brave,  the  indifferent  earnest,  the  lazy  energetic ;  and 
God's  action  on  the  intellect  and  the  soul,  which  I 
aver  may  be  secured  by  prayer,  is  done  in  the  same 
way  as  that  of  man  on  man,  only  it  is  infinitely  more 
subtile  and  great  in  proportion  to  His  greater  power. 

It  has  nothing  to  do  with  miracle.  Miracle  is  a 
change  in  the  ordinary  sequence  of  physical  events ; 
this  is  the  action  of  the  spiritual  upon  the  spiritual, 
of  mind  on  mind ;  and,  if  we  grant  a  spiritual  world 
at  all,  it  seems  to  be  an  action  not  only  perfectly  lawful, 
but  also  agreeing  with  our  own  observation  of  the 
action  of  our  spirit  and  mind  on  those  of  others. 

Once  more,  miracles  are,  by  the  hypothesis,  rare. 
Such  action  as  I  speak  of  is  ceaseless.  Love  works  such 
direct  '  miracles '  every  day  ;  but  mark  how  it  works. 
It  does  not  produce  any  direct  change  in  the  physical 
world.  All  the  love  in  the  world  will  not  stop  the  rising 
wind  which  threatens  to  chill  your  child  to  the  death 
as  you  stagger  belated  with  her  across  the  snowy  moor, 
nor  stay  the  tooth  of  consumption  which  is  gnawing  at 
the  life  of  your  husband.  But  it  will  make  the  child 
die  in  peace  looking  lovingly  into  your  eyes  to  the  last ; 
it  will  change  the  husband  who  has  neglected  you  into 
a  sorrowing  and  loving  man.  The  two  worlds  are 
different.  Force  only  acts  within  force.  Spirit  acts  on 
spirit,  and  both  according  to  their  own  laws.  Now  the 
influence  of  which  I  speak  does  not  enter  into  the 
dominion  of  physical  force,  and  where  it  touches  it,  it 
does  not  interfere  with  it. 

But  our  main  question  to-day  is,  what  is  the  force  of 
prayer? 


The  Force  of  Prayer.  \  5 1 

It  derives  its  force  first  from  its  being  the  satisfac- 
tion of  a  want  in  man.  Man  needs  to  worship  some 
one.  In  youth,  in  manhood,  he  finds  friends,  objects  of 
still  intenser  love.  But  they  do  not  fill  the  deep  abyss 
of  his  necessity  ;  the  love  he  bears  to  them  is  exclu- 
sive, is  partly  selfish.  In  their  purest  and  dearest  form 
our  affections  do  not  disappoint,  but  they  do  not  sa- 
tisfy. We  are  thrown  back  upon  God,  not  that  wo 
want  to  lose  the  earthly  affections,  but  to  fulfil  them, 
to  hold  them  involved  and  hallowed  in  a  perfect  ado- 
ration. 

But  God — what  is  the  God  we  worship  ?  Is  it  a  God 
without  us,  only  the  Maker  of  the  universe,  the  ab- 
solute Source  of  power,  the  Lord  of  law  ?  That  con- 
ception awakens  awe,  but  not  love.  Try  it  in  your  hour 
of  unhappiness,  and  you  find  while  you  tremble  that  you 
hate  it. 

Wliat  is  the  God  we  worship  ?  Is  it  only  a  God  within 
us,  a  spirit  moving  through  our  spirit  ?  We  can  love 
that,  but  our  love  has  a  tendency  fo  pass  into  familiarity 
and  straightway  all  the  subtile  essence  of  it  is  gone.  It 
disappoints  like  human  love.  Or  it  drifts  into  an  ideal 
Pantheism,  and  God  is  confused  with  that  Ego,  by 
which  alone  I  become  conscious  of  the  universe.  Then 
with  the  fiiding  of  the  personality  of  God  fades  the 
reality  of  adoration. 

We  must  have  both,  a  personal  God  without  us,  the 
object  of  awful  veneration — a  personal  God  within  us, 
the  object  of  childlike  love.  Awe  and  love  combined 
are  perfect  adoration,  and  in  that  adoration  the  soul  is 
satisfied,  earth  is  glorified,  heaven  is  in  our  heai-ts,  and 


152  The  Force  of  Prayer. 

all  our  human  love  raised  into  something  more  intense 
and  pure  when  it  breathes  this  air  of  the  Eternal. 

Prayer  is  the  expression  of  this  adoring  love,  as 
necessary  to  man  as  the  adoring  love  is  necessary ;  and 
till  awe  ceases  to  exalt  the  soul,  and  love  to  be  its  food, 
the  soul  of  man  must  pray.  Men  may  call  prayer  an 
absurdity,  deny  its  work,  banish  its  influence,  but  nature 
and  God  will  be  too  strong  for  them.  These  men  will 
glide  into  the  absurdity  they  laughed  at  when  their 
heart  is  passionate  with  sorrow ;  and  as  to  banishing 
its  influence — they  must  banish  veneration  and  love 
from  the  heart,  and  then  tear  away  the  heart  itself,  ere 
they  can  banish  prayer.  Its  force  is  here,  within  us, 
here  in  the  depth  of  our  want. 

But  this  is  a  force  which  is  derived  from  its  origin. 
What  is  its  practical  force  in  life  ?  One  form  of  its 
force  is  in  its  reflex  action.  It  has  been  remarked  by  a 
physician,  that  the  physicians  who  catch  infectious 
diseases  are  those  who  are  afraid  or  who  allow  fear  to 
master  them.  It  is  ilot  difficult  to  account  for  this. 
Fear  unhinges  the  nervous  system.  It  causes  vital 
changes  during  w^hich  vital  force  is  lost.  The  disease 
finds  the  citadel  weakened  of  its  defenders,  and  enters 
in.  .  On  the  other  hand,  a  man  whose  sense  of  duty  is 
strong,  or  whose  sympathy  with  pain  is  greater  than  his 
dread,  or  whose  will  is  master  of  his  nerves,  retains  his 
nervous  energy,  loses  no  force — the  disease  finds  no 
feeble  point  in  the  physical  defence.  This  is  the  reflex 
action  of  passions  on  danger. 

In  the  same  way  prayer  acts  with  force.  It  does  not 
directly  take  away  a  trial  or  its  pain,  any  more  than  a 


The  Force  of  Prayer,  1 5  3 

sense  of  duty  directly  takes  away  the  danger  of  in- 
fection, but  it  preserves  the  strength  of  the  whole 
spiritual  fibre,  so  that  the  trial  does  not  pass  into 
temptation  to  sin.  A  sorrow  comes  upon  you.  Omit 
prayer,  and  you  fall  out  of  God's  testing  into  the  Devil's 
temptation;  you  get  angry,  hard  of  heart,  reckless. 
But  meet  the  dreadful  hour  with  prayer,  cast  your 
care  on  God,  claim  Him  as  your  Father,  though  He 
seem  cruel — and  the  degrading,  paralysing,  embittering 
effects  of  pain  and  son-ow  pass  away,  a  stream  of 
sanctifying  and  softening  thoughts  pours  into  the  soul, 
and  that  which  might  have  wrought  your  fall  but  works 
in  you  the  peaceable  fruits  of  righteousness.  You  pass 
from  bitterness  into  the  courage  of  endurance,  and  from 
endurance  into  battle,  and  from  battle  into  victory, 
till  at  last  the  trial  dignifies  and  blesses  your  life. 

And  this  brings  me  to  another  characteristic  of  the 
force  of  prayer.  It  is  not  altogether  effective  at  once.  Its 
a<;tion  is  cumulative.  At  first  there  seems  no  answer  to 
your  exceeding  bitter  cry.  But  there  has  been  an  answer; 
God  has  heard.  A  little  grain  of  strength,  not  enough 
to  be  conscious  of,  has  been  given  in  one  way  or  another. 
A  friend  has  come  in  and  grasped  your  hand — you  have 
heard  the  lark  sprinkle  his  notes  like  raindrops  on  the 
earth — a  text  has  stolen  into  your  mind  you  know  not 
how.  Next  morning  you  wake  with  the  old  aching  at 
the  heart,  but  the  grain  of  strength  has  kept  you  alive — 
and  so  it  goes  on  :  hour  by  hour,  day  by  day,  prayer 
brings  its  tiny  spark  of  light  till  they  orb  into  a  star, 
its  grain  of  strength  till  they  grow  into  an  anchor  of 
the  soul,  sure  and  stedfast.     The  answer  to  prayer  ia 


154  1^^^  Force  of  Prayer. 

slow ;  the  force  of  prajer  is  cumulative.  Not  till  life 
is  over  is  the  whole  answer  given,  the  whole  strength  it 
has  brought  understood. 

And  the  lady  prayed  in  heaviness 

That  looked  not  for  relief, 
,  And  slowly  did  her  succour  come 

And  a  patience  to  her  grief. 
Oh,  there  is  never  sorrow  of  heart 

That  shall  lack  a  timely  end, 
If  but  to  God  we  turn  and  ask 

Of  Him  to  be  our  friend. 

Again.  Its  force  is  not  only  cumulative,  but  reliev- 
ing through  expression.  There  are  some  griefs,  some 
passionate  moral  struggles,  some  fatal  secrets,  of  the 
inner  life,  which  we  cannot  speak  to  man.  For  we 
cannot  give  men  that  knowledge  of  our  whole  past, 
by  which  alone  its  secrets  can  be  justly  judged.  But 
to  our  Father  who  knows  all  we  can  speak  out.  He 
has  no  conventional  maxims  by  which  to  measure  us, 
no  half-experience,  no  harshness,  no  jealous  injustice 
such  as  among  men  demands  to  be  considered  love.  He 
cannot,  therefore,  mistake  us — we  are  sure  of  justice  ; 
and  it  is  that,  not  love  alone,  which  we  ask  from 
Him  if  our  souls  be  true. 

Out  of  the  silent  loneliness  of  the  heart,  then,  the 
prayer  of  confession  rises  to  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 
The  weight  is  lifted  off  the  soul,  at  least  the  unbearable- 
ness  of  it  is  gone.  We  have  told  it  all  to  Him — He 
knew  it,  it  is  true — what  was  the  need  of  telling  Him  ? 
No  need  to  Him,  but  comfort  to  us,  for  expression  gives 
relief  to  tortured  feeling.  As  long  as  we  kept  it, 
brooded  over  it,  it  was  like  air  in  a  sealed  room;  it 
grew    deadlier,   and    slowly    poisoned    all  the   heart. 


The  Force  of  Prayer.  1 5  5 

Expressed,  it  was  like  the  same  air  when,  the  windows 
thrown  open,  the  sweet  spring  breeze  came  flowing  in  ; 
we  rise  up — half  the  horror  is  gone,  half  the  weight 
of  the  secret  guilt  is  lifted  off,  we  begin  to  feel  ashamed 
of  having  despaired  of  life ;  we  begin  to  feel  the  duty  of 
forgetting  sin  and  pressing  forward  into  the  work  of 
righteousness.  This  is  the  blessed  work  of  prayer  to 
God — of  simply  entrusting  to  Him  all. 

It  is  no  strange  mysterious  work.  It  has  its  ceaseless 
analogies  in  our  every-day  life.  The  morbid  youth  of  the 
German  poet  poured  out  all  its  sickly  feeling  in  his  first 
prose  novel,  and  it  was  gone  for  ever.  Bums,  riding 
across  the  Highland  moor,  when  the  sky  was  dark  with 
thunder  and  the  rain  fell  in  accumulating  roar,  felt  his 
heart  sweU  almost  to  breaking  with  passionate  feeling, 
and  sang  to  himself  that  battle-hymn  in  which  we  hear 
the  rushing  rain  and  the  elemental  war.  Elijah  on  the 
mountain,  his  heart  burning  with  the  desertion  of  a 
whole  people,  felt  his  passion  relieved  by  the  earthquake, 
and  wind,  and  fire,  and  the  still  small  voice  represented 
to  him  the  calm  which  had  come  upon  his  stormy  heart. 
Jeremiah,  indignant  with  God,^  broke  into  a  wild  cry,  in 
which  he  gave  expression  to  his  pain,  and  relieved,  he 
felt  the  fire  of  duty  bum  bright  again,  and  took  up  again 
the  work  of  life.  And  He  who  was  Mankind,  burdened 
with  untold  sorrow  in  the  sorrowful  garden,  did  not 
hide  his  agony  from  his  Father,  though  He  knew  it 
could  not  be  taken  from  Him,  but  expressing  it,  passed 
into  the  sublime  peace  with  which  He  drank  the  cup 

•  Jer.  XX.  7,  8,  0. 


156  The  Force  of  Prayer, 

and  died.  Expression  relieves  the  o'erfrauglit  heart, 
and,  the  pressure  removed,  it  rebounds  into  the  natural 
strength  of  health.     Wordsworth  has  said  it  all : — 

To  me  alone  there  came  a  thought  of  grief: 
A  timely  utterance  gave  that  thought  relief, 
And  I  again  am  strong. 

Yes,  if  any  here  are  crushed  with  unshared  sorrow, 
eaten  with  the  remorse  of  unhealed  and  secret  sin, 
chained  to  a  trial  which  none  can  understand,  and 
therefore  wordless  to  man — spread  it  before  the  God 
of  kindness  and  justice,  before  the  God  of  human 
nature.  The  method  of  relief  is  ready  to  your  hand. 
Make  use  of  prayer. 

Lastly.  It  has  the  power  of  sanctifying  life  be- 
cause it  brings  God  into  life.  Twice  in  the  day  it  has 
been  for  ages  the  habit  of  the  race  to  use  this  talis- 
man ;  once  for  the  sanctification  of  the  day,  once  for 
the  sanctification  of  the  night.  The  morning  prayer 
chimes  in  with  the  joy  of  the  creation,  with  the  quick 
world  as  it  awakes  and  sings.  It  ought  to  bind  itself  up 
with  the  rising  of  the  sun,  the  opening  of  the  flowers, 
the  divine  service  of  the  birds,  the  glow  of  cloudy 
bars  on  which  the  rays  of  light  strike  like  a  musician's 
fingers,  and  whose  notes  and  chords  are  colour.  The 
voice  of  the  world  is  prayer,  and  our  morning  worship 
should  be  in  tune  with  its  ordered  hymn  of  praise. 
But  in  joy  we  should  recall  our  weakness,  and 
ask  His  presence  who  is  strength  and  redemption, 
so  that  joy  may  be  married  to  watchfulness  by 
humility.  Such  a  prayer  is  the  guard  of  life.  It 
prepares  us  beforehand  for  temptation ;  neglect  it  and 


TJic  Force  of  Prayer,  1 5  7 

you  fall.  It  makes  us  conscious  of  our  Father's 
presence,  so  that  we  hear  His  voice  in. the  hour  of  our 
folly  or  our  sin.  *  My  child,  this  morning  you  called 
Me  to  your  side ;  do  not  drive  Me  far  away.  Bridle  that 
passionate  temper ;  restmin  that  excitement  which  is 
sweeping  you  beyond  the  power  of  will ;  keep  back  that 
foolish  word  which  will  sting  your  neighbour's  heart ; 
do  not  do  that  dishonesty;  be  not  guilty  of  that 
cowardice.    I  am  by  your  side.' 

That  is  the  thing  which  prayer  makes  real.  Prayer, 
not  only  in  the  morning  watch,  but  prayer  sent  voice- 
less from  the  heart  from  hour  to  hour.  Then  life  is 
hallowed,  wakeful,  and  calm.  It  becomes  beautiful 
with  that  beauty  of  God  which  eye  hath  not  seen.  It 
is  not  left  comfortless,  for  prayer  brings  the  Saviour  to 
our  side.  In  the  hour  of  our  grief  we  hear  the  voice 
of  Christ  coming  down  the  ages  to  our  soul,  tender  as 
the  morning  light  on  flowers,  '  Come  unto  Me,  all  that 
are  weary  and  heavy  laden  :  I  will  give  you  rest.'  We 
hear  Him  as  we  sit  at  business,  speaking  as  He  spoke 
to  Matthew  at  the  receipt  of  custom,  '  Follow  Me ; '  and 
though  we  know  we  cannot  rise  as  did  the  publican, 
for  our  work  is  where  He  has  placed  us,  yet  we  know 
its  meaning.  We  seem  to  feel  his  hand  in  ours  in  the 
passion  of  our  endeavour  to  do  right  when  duty  and 
interest  clash,  and  his  grasp  gives  firmness  to  our 
faltering  resolution.  And  when  the  petty  troubles  of 
life,  the  small  difficulties  which  sting  like  gnats,  the 
intrusions,  the  quarrels,  the  slight  derangements  of 
health,  have  disturbed  our  temper,  and  we  are  in 
danger  of  being  false  to  that  divine  charity  whicli  is 


158  The  Force  of  Prayer, 

the  dew  of  life,  one  prayer  will  sweep  us  back  to 
Palestine,  and  ^standing  among  the  circle  of  the 
Apostles  we  shall  listen  to  his  voice,  '  Love  one  another 
as  I  have  loved  you.'  'Peace  I  leave  with  you,  My 
peace  I  give  unto  you.' 

And  day  being  hallowed' thus,  do  not  omit  to  make 
holy  the  night.  For  whether  we  sleep  a  dreamless 
sleep,  as  if  sleep  had  given  us  for  the  time  to  the  arms 
of  his  brother  death,  or  wander  in  the  land  of  '  footless 
fancies,'  where  the  brain  and  its  servants,  having 
escaped  from  their  master,  will,  play  at  their  wild 
pleasure,  like  things  without  a  soul,  we  need  the  pre- 
sence and  protection  of  God.  In  dead  sleep  who  can  tell 
where  the  spirit  has  been,  what  worlds  it  has  seen,  what 
lessons  it  has  received,  what  thoughts  have  become 
entwined  with  it — thoughts  of  which  we  are  not  con- 
scious, but  which  appear  like  strangers  afterwards, 
we  cannot  tell  from  Avhence,  within  the  brain. 

Hallow  these  possible  voyages  by  committing  your 
spirit  into  the  hands  of  God. 

But  still  more  we  need  His  watchfulness,  or,  since  He 
is  always  watchful,  our  suppressed  consciousness  of  it, 
when  sleep  opens  the  ivory  gate,  and  we  flitter  through 
the  fairy  life  of  dreamland. 

It  is  not  beauty  alone  which  we  encounter  there,  but 
mystery  more  mysterious  than  that  of  earth ;  strange 
words  which  seem  to  be  warnings  ;  impressions  so  vivid 
that  they  stamp  the  day ;  pain  and  pleasure  so  sharp 
that  we  cry  or  dread  to  dream  again ;  noble  thoughts, 
pure  shapes  of  the  imagination,  which,  unremembered 
in  detail,  yet  leave  behind  an  inspiring  sense  of  the 


The  Force  of  Prayer.  1 5  9 

infinite  tilings  the  soul  may  do ;  temptations  to  sin,  cruel 
and  impure  thoughts,  terror  even  and  hoiTor  which 
open  to  us  more  dreadful  depths  of  guilt  and  pain  than 
we  can  realise  awake. 

Take,  hy  the  power  of  prayer,  through  this  wild  land 
of  dreams,  the  sanctifying  presence  of  One  who  loves  us. 
Claim  it  every  night,  and  it  will  attend  to  hallow  the 
fancies  of  sleep,  to  save  us  from  the  baseness  of  dream- 
fear,  to  call  back  the  wandering  fancy  from  impurity. 
For  prayer,  continually  lived  in,  makes  the  presence 
of  a  holy  and  loving  God  the  air  which  life  breathes 
and  by  which  it  lives,  so  that,  as  it  mingles  consciously 
with  the  work  of  the  day,  it  becomes  also  a  part  of 
every  dream. 

To  us,  then,  it  will  be  no  strange  thing  to  enter 
Heaven,  for  we  have  been  living  in  the  things  of 
Heaven.  They  have  even  here  become  realities,  and 
when  we  step  across  the  drawbridge  of  death,  it  is  no 
foreign  land  we  enter,  but  our  native  Home.  Only  the 
communion  with  our  Father  which  we  have  felt  here 
through  prayer,  shall  there  be  so-  profoundly  greater 
ihat  prayer  will  be  no  more,  and  praise  be  all  in  all. 


i6o  Immortality, 


IMMORTALITY, 

*  For  lie  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living :  for  all  live  unto 
him.* — Luke  xx.  38. 

There  is  a  common  reason  for  the  perverse  denial 
of  immortality.  It  is,  that  man,  when  living  solely  for 
this  world,  cannot  believe  in  a  world  to  come.  He  who 
is  blind  has  no  conception  of  the  stars.  He  who  is 
without  passion  cannot  believe  in  enthusiasm.  He 
who  lives  for  himself  cannot  believe  in  self-devotion. 

And  he  who  is  living  a  base  life  cannot  believe  in  a 
noble  one.  If  his  soul  is  plunged  in  the  sensual,  he 
cannot  realise  the  spiritual.  When  his  whole  energies 
are  given  to  this  world,  he  cannot  conceive  or  possess 
the  world  to  come.  There  are,  then,  thousands  of  men 
calling  themselves  Christians,  to  whom  immortal  life 
is  merely  a  name,  to  whom  their  little  life  is  indeed 
'  rounded  with  a  sleep.' 

Practically,  they  disbelieve  in  immortality.  They 
may  even  inwardly  go  further,  and  deny  it  to  them- 
selves, should  the  question  intrude  upon  their  pleasure. 
But  they  do  not  deny  it  before  the  world.  Something 
holds  them  back  from  boasting  of  their  unbelief;  a 
consciousness  that  they  have  thrown  aside  a  noble 
thing,  a  regret  which  will  steal  in,  that  now  they  can 


Immortality,  i6i 

no  longer  aspire  beyond  their  present  life.  Unable  to 
realise  immortality  themselves,  they  yet  shrink  from 
an  open  denial  of  it  with  a  sense  of  shame  and  degra- 
dation. But  still  more,  it  becomes  a  dreadful  thing  to 
them,  if  they  have  any  sensitive  reverence  left  for  the 
sorrow  of  Mankind,  to  throw  doubt  upon  this  doctrine. 
If  true,  it  is  so  precious  thfit  it  seems  the  race  might 
bear  any  suffering  provided  it  was  its  fate  at  last ;  if  it 
is  only  held  to  be  false  and  not  proved  false,  a  man 
may  well  doubt  whether,  on  his  own  judgment  alone, 
he  should  proclaim  that  he  holds  it  false.  There  is 
a  devotion  to  one's  ovyn  truthfulness  which  is,  in  cer- 
tain circumstances,  intolerable  cruelty  to  others,  and,  in 
spiritual  matters,  where  proof  has  not  been  attained, 
unlesr;  we  clearly  feel  that  to  disclose  our  opinion  is 
^ood  for  man,  we  are  only  Pharisees  anxious  to  placard 
our  honesty  when  we  loudly  proclaim  our  negations  in 
public  or  in  private.  Truthfulness  without  charity  is 
a  vice  and  not  a  virtue,  as  love  v/ithout  truthfulness 
to  moral  right  becomes  idolatry. 

And  men  in  general  have  felt  this,  and  when  they 
disbelieved  in  immortality  have  held  their  tongue. 

Moreover,  they  have  refrained,  because  they  insen- 
sibly felt  that  the  denial  of  immortality  is  practically 
atheism.  Clinging  still  to  the  notion  of  a  God,  they 
connect  with  Him  their  ideas  of  right  and  wrong.  He 
is  their  source,  and  He  allots  their  sanctions.  But  no 
one  can  long  continue  to  believe  in  and  to  love  a  God 
who  is  assumed  to  give  us  these  ideas,  and  then*  so 
forgets  all  about  His  gift  and  His  creature  as  to  plunge 
obedience  and  disobedience  into  the  same  nothingness  ; 


1 62  Immortality. 

or  who  by  wilfully  annexing  annihilation  to  all  human 
lives  alike,  proclaims  that  in  His  eyes,  Tiberius,  rotting 
to  a  shameless  death  in  Caprea,  is  on  the  same  level 
with  the  Saviour  dying  on  Calvary  for  the  Truth.  One 
must  feel  that  such  a  God  would  be  wicked.  He  would 
deny  that  very  morality  which  we  imagine  He  has 
implanted  in  us.  We  sho]ild  be  obliged  to  deny  His 
existence  in  order  to  retain  our  morality.  To  disbelieve 
in  immortality  is  to  disbelieve  in  G  od :  v/ith  the  fall  of 
the  one,  falls  the  other. 

And  this  also  men  have  felt,  and  I  know  no  instance 
where  the  denial  of  immortality  has  not  led  directly  to 
atheism.  Men  did  not  like  to  realise,  by  putting  their 
denial  of  immortality  into  speech,  that  they  did  not 
practically  believe  in  God  at  all. 

But  these  motives  have  now  ceased  to  operate,  at  least 
to  the  same  extent.  Matters  have  taken  a  new  phase. 
Immortality  is  boldly  or  quietly  denied,  not  only  by 
impure  and  selfish  men,  but  by  men  of  culture  and  of  a 
high  morality.  It  is  accompanied,  as  it  must  neces- 
sarily be,  by  latent  or  overt  atheism,  as  a  cause  or  a 
result  of  the  denial. 

What  are  the  particular  causes  of  this  denial  at 
present  ?  One  is  the  prevalence  of  certain  theological 
views  which,  once  largely  accepted,  are  now  felt  to  be 
repugnant  to  the  moral  sense.  Good  men,  some 
among  the  best  and  holiest  of  the  race,  have  held 
these  views,  and  lived  and  died  by  them.  And  it  is  a 
strong  proof  that  theological  opinions  have  no  necessary 
connection  with  goodness  that  these  men  have  been  so 
good.  ^  It  proves  also  that  we  cannot  judge  the  morality 
of  one   time,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the   morality  of 


Immortality »  163 

opinions,  by  the  morality  of  another  time.  I'or  few 
doubted  then  of  the  accordance  of  these  opinions  with 
moral  right ;  and  now  many  persons,  distinctly,  and  it 
seems  to  me  with  truth,  reject  them  as  immoral. 

Among  these,  the  first  is  the  conception  of  God. 
The  conception  of  God*s  nature  which  has  been  laid 
before  us  for  many  years,  has  brought  many  men  at 
last  to  turn  away  from  it  with  dismay  and  pain.  They 
feel  that  the  morality  of  the  pulpit  on  this  matter  lags 
behind  the  moral  feeling  of  society.  God  has  been 
represented,  they  think,  and  I  think  with  them,  as 
selfish,  as  seeking  His  own  glory  at  the  expense  of  His 
creatures'  welfare,  as  jealous,  as  arbitrary,  as  indul- 
ging in  favouritism,  as  condemning  all  for  the  sake  of 
one,  as  insisting  on  forms  of  temporary  importance 
and  binding  them  for  ever  on  the  conscience,  as  ruining 
men  for  mistakes  in  doctrine,  as  claiming  a  blind  sub- 
mission of  the  conscience  and  the  intellect,  as  vindic- 
tive, as  the  resolute  torturer  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
human  race  by  an  everlasting  punishment  which  pre- 
supposes everlasting  evil;  as,  in  one  word,  anything 
rather  than  the  Father  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Much  of  this  teaching  remains  still,  though  it  is  pre- 
sented under  a  veil  by  which  its  coarser  outlines  are 
modified.  It  is  accepted  by  many  who  either  do  not 
possess  a  strong  and  individual  sense  of  morality,  or 
who  do  not  think,  or  prefer  not  to  think  on  the  matter, 
lest  they  should  shake  the  fabric  of  their  easy  faith  or 
spoil  their  religious  sentiment.  But,  those  who  do, 
and  whose  moral  feeling  of  right  and  wrong  is  sane 
and  strong,  turn   away  revolted   from  a  God   of  this 


1 64  Immortality. 

character,  believe  tliat  to  be  immortally  connected  with 
Him  would  be  degradation,  even  the  very  horror  of  hell. 

But  not  having  been  taught  any  other  God,  and 
being,  to  a  certain  degree,  culpably  lazy  about  exa- 
mining into  the  teaching  of  Christianity  for  themselves, 
they  fall  back  on  their  last  resource,  and  disbelieve  in 
immortality.  ^  It  is  better  to  perish  for  ever,  than  to  be 
the  slave  of  such  a  ruler.  We  deny  his  existence, 
and  we  deny  the  immortality  he  is  said  to  promise. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  we  will  be  true  to  our  sense  of 
right  and  wrong ;  we  will  do  what  we  can  to  help  the 
race ;  we  will  have  our  immortality  in  the  memories  of 
the  future,  or  in  the  "  Being  of  Humanity  ;"  but,  as  for 
ourselves,  let  ns  cease,  for  we  could  not  live  with  tlie 
Being  who  has  been  described  fco  us.' 

Now,  I  believe  this  to  be,  and  no  one  need  mistake 
my  meaning,  a  really  healthy  denial  of  immortality, 
for  it  is  founded  on  the  denial  of  a  false  God.  And 
so  far  as  it  is  founded  on  the  assertion  of  a  true  mo- 
rality, so  far  it  is,  though  these  men  do  not  confess  it 
as  such,  the  assertion  of  the  true  God.  The  God  who 
has  been  preached  to  men  of  late  has  now  become  to 
us  an  idol,  that  is,  a  conception  of  God  lower  than  we 
ought  to  frame,  and  a  revolt  against  that  conception 
is  not  in  reality  a  revolt  against  God ;  it  is  a  protest 
against  idolatry.  I  sympathise  strongly,  then,  with 
that  part  of  the  infidel  effort  which  is  directed  against 
these  immoral  views  of  God's  character,  though  I  am 
pained  by  the  manner  in  which  the  attack  is  conducted 
— and  it  is  my  hope  that  the  attack  will  lead  our 
theologians  to  bring  their  teaching  up  to  the  level  of 


Inimortality.  1 65 

tlie  common  moral  feeling  on  this  subject,  and  to  reveal 
iJod  as  the  Father  of  men  in  aU  the  profound  meaning 
uf  that  term.  The  belief  in  immortality  will  then  re- 
turn, for  the  love  of  God  will  return  to  men.  For  it  is 
impossible  for  any  man  to  clearly  see  and  believe  in  the 
Father  as  revealed  in  Christ  and  not  passionately  de- 
sire to  draw  nearer  and  nearer  to  Him  for  ever,  and 
not  feel  that  he  must  live  and  continue  to  live  for  ever. 
Therefore,  in  order  to  restore  to  men  such  as  I  have 
described  a  belief  in  immortality,  we  must  restore  to 
them  a  true  conception  of  God.  This  is,  this  ought  to 
be,  the  main  work  of  the  preachers  and  teachers  of  this 
time.  For  as  long  as  the  morality  of  the  pulpit  hangs 
behind  the  morality  of  religious-minded  men,  those 
religious-minded  men  will  be  infidels. 

Again,  another  reason  for  the  prevalent  disbelief  in 
immortality  is  the  selfish  theory  of  religious  life.  That 
theory  has  almost  died  away  among  religious  teachers, 
but  the  reaction  against  it  still  continues.  We  have 
given  it  up,  but  it  is  stiU  imputed  to  us  by  our  infidel 
opponents. 

It  is  said  that  we  are  to  do  good  in  order  to  be 
rewarded,  and  to  avoid  evil,  lest  we  should  be  punished. 
In  this  doctrine,  baldly  stated  as  it  has  been,  there  is 
nothing  which  appeals  to  the  nobler  feelings  of  man. 
Selfish  gratification  and  selfish  fear  are  alone  addressed. 
It  is  a  direct  appeal  to  that  part  of  our  being  which  is 
the  meanest,  as  if  that  were  the  part  which  could  most 
readily  accept  religion.  It  connects  us  to  God  by  bonds 
of  self-mterest,  as  a  servant  to  a  patron,  not  by  bonds 
of  love,  as  a  child  to  a  father. 


1 6  6  Immortality. 

Against  this  theory  many  rose  in  revolt,  declaring 
tl.at  according  to  it  the  desire  of  immortal  life  was  a 
selfish  desire,  and  proposing,  as  an  escape  from  this 
selfishness,  that  men  should  live  a  noble  life  without 
hopes  for  the  future.  They  set  this  forth  as  the  highest 
form  of  self-sacrifice.  '  Live,'  they  said,  '  doing  good, 
without  hope  of  reward,  only  for  the  sake  of  good — 
hating  and  fighting  with  evil,  because  evil  is  degradation, 
not  because  it  is  punished.  You  cannot  do  this  if  you 
accept  the  Christian  doctrine  of  immortal  life.  ]For  it 
nourishes  selfishness.  It  locks  a  man  up  in  care  for 
his  own  safety.  On  the  highest  religious  grounds,  we 
deny  the  doctrine  of  immortality  as  prejudicial  to  a 
noble  and  pious  life.' 

And  if  that  were  really  the  Christian  doctrine,  they 
would  do  well  in  denying  it,  and  we  might  be  driven 
to  accept  their  fine-sounding  theory  of  self-sacrifice. 

But  we  meet  it,  first,  by  a  blunt  contradiction  of  the 
false  representation  of  Christianity,  from  which  it  has 
sprung  as  a  reaction.  Christianity  says  precisely  what 
these  men  say,  only  not  in  so  abstract  a  manner.  It 
asks  us  to  do  good,  not  for  the  sake  of  abstract  good, 
but  for  the  sake  of  being  like  to  God— the  personal 
goodness.  That  is  not  a  selfish  doctrine,  nor  does  it 
lead  to  selfishness.  It  urges  us  to  avoid  evil,  lest  we 
should  become  unlike  God,  in  whose  image  we  are, 
and  whose  temple  we  become.  That  is  not  a  selfish 
motive.  It  takes  us  out  of  self,  and  makes  our  life  con- 
sist in  living  in  God,  and  because  He  lives  in  all  the 
race,  in  living  through  Him  in  the  interests  and  lives 
of  all  our  brother-men.     That  is  not  a  selfish  doctrine. 


Immortality.  167 

Its  reward  is  not  a  selfisli  reward;  it  is  tlie  reward 
of  being  made  unselfish,  because  made  like  to  God. 
'  Your  reward,'  said  Christ,  *  shall  be  great,  for  ye  shall 
be  the  children  of  your  Father ; '  that  is,  resembling 
your  Father  in  character. 

Nor  does  Christianity'  appeal  to  fear  of  punishment, 
but  to  the  feeling  of  love.  It  does  not  say  menacingly, 
*  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  or  steal,  or  be  an  idolater ;  *  it  says, 
'  Love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  soul,  and  thy 
neighbour  as  thyself,*  for  then,  since  thou  lovest,  thou 
canst  not  injure  thy  neighbour,  or  sin  against  God. 
It  rejects  fear  as  having  torment,  as  belonging  to  a 
spirit  of  bondage,  not  a  spirit  of  life.  It  appeals 
throughout  to  self-sacrifice,  self-devotion.  It  asks  us  to 
live  by  all  that  is  noblest  in  us,  to  walk  worthy  of  our 
high  vocation — likeness  to  Christ,  who  died  for  men. 
It  does  not  proclaim  the  selfisli  doctrine  on  which  this 
denial  of  immortality  is  founded. 

But  it  is  plain  that  it  does  declare  rewards  and 
punishments;  and  an  objector  may  say,  that  even  on 
the  supposition  that  Christianity  does  not  really  appeal 
to  the  selfish  feeling,  yet  that  the  introduction  of  the 
element  of  rewards  has  in  itself  a  tendency  to  produce 
selfish  feeling. 

Certainly,  we  answer,  if  the  rewards  are  material,  if 
they  belong  in  any  way  to  the  selfish  part  of  our 
nature.  But  if  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  that,  but 
with  that  part  of  our  being  which  lives  by  the  denial  of 
self  and  the  practice  of  self-devotion,  if  they  are  purely 
spiritual  rewards,  to  long  after  them  is  not  selfish,  but 
the  high  duty  of  the  soul.     God  says,  *  Do  good,  and 


1 68  Ifmnortality. 

you  are  rewarded.'  How  ?  By  an  increased  power  of 
doing  good.  Is  it  selfisli  to  desire  that?  God  says, 
'  Love  me,  love  your  brother-men  with  all  your  heart, 
and  you  shall  be  rewarded.'  How  ?  By  deeper  capa- 
bility of  loving.  Is  it  selfish  to  desire  that  ?  The  true 
statement  of  the  doctrine  of  rewards  at  once  dissipates 
this  absurd  accusation  of  selfishness. 

To  look  forward  to  this  increase  of  the  spiritual  life, 
to  this  daily  growth  of  unselfishness,  and  to  live  and 
act  in  the  hope  of  that  and  for  its  sake;  it  is  ridi- 
culous to  call  that  a  selfish  theory.  To  do  good,  and 
to  think  of  the  reward  of  being  loved  by  God  and  of 
becoming  more  like  to  God,  is  no  more  a  selfish  life 
than  to  spend  one's  whole  life  for  one's  country,  and  to 
rejoice  in  the  idea  of  being  loved  by  one's  country,  and 
becoming  more  worthy  of  her  love,  is  selfish  for  the 
high-hearted  soldier.  A  life  of  love  lived  in  the  hope 
of  the  reward  of  becoming  more  capable  of  love,  does 
not  encourage  in  the  heart  a  single  germ  of  selfishness. 

And  as  to  immortal  life  itself,  if  you  choose  to  sepa- 
rate it  for  a  moment  from  these  spiritual  qualities  of 
love,  and  purity,  and  truth  (which  in  us  are  immortal 
life)  the  desire  of  life,  keener,  purer,  more  abounding, 
cannot  be  selfish.  For  it  is  a  natural  appetite  of  the 
human  spirit. 

Now  the  lawful  gratification  of  appetite  is  not 
selfish.  No  one  is  so  absurd  as  to  say  that  the  desire 
of  food  or  drink  when  we  are  hungry  or  thirsty,  for 
the  sake  of  relieving  these  appetites,  is  a  selfish  desire. 
No  one  says  that  th$  desire  of  knowledge  for  the  sake 
of  knowing  is  a  selfish  desire.     It  is  a  noble  appetite  of 


Immortality.  169 

the  intellect.  Yet  here,  when  we  get  into  the  realm  of 
the  spirit  of  man,  we  are  told  that  the  desire  of 
immortal  life  for  the  sake  of  life,  and  that  acting  f5r  the 
purpose  of  being  a  partaker  of  that  life,  is  selfish,  and 
encourages  selfishness.  It  is  a  greater  absurdity  than 
the  others.  Desire  of  life  is  the  most  natural  appetite 
of  the  spirit,  and  we  are  in  desperate  peril  of  becoming 
truly  selfish  when  we  crush  it,  or  caricature  it,  or  at- 
tempt t/O  live  without  it. 

Indeed,  that  is  often  the  result.  I  do  not  speak  now 
of  those  who  replace  the  doctrine  of  personal  immortality 
by  the  mystical  and  unpractical  notion  of  an  immortality 
in  the  race,  'for  these  at  least  allow  of  the  existence  of 
a  longing  and  passion  for  immortality,  of  which  they 
are  bound  to  take  notice ;  nor  of  those  who  frankly,  on 
scientific  grounds,  avow  that  they  do  not  believe  in  the 
existence  of  a  spirit  in  man  apart  from  his  mortal  frame, 
but  of  those  who  quietly,  on  the  fantastic  ground  of 
the  selfishness  of  this  passion,  deprive  the  race  of  one 
of  the  mighty  hopes  which  make  us  men. 

On  the  whole,  mankind  resents  this,  and  resents  it 
justly.  It  separates  itself  from  these  men  who  have 
separated  themselves  from  the  common  longing.  They 
feel  their  isolation,  and  retire  from  the  world.  Or  they 
become  angry  with  the  world,  and  mock  and  scorn  its 
aspirations.  Or  they  seclude  themselves  and  their 
theory  in  Pharisaic  dignity,  and  thank  Fate  that  they 
are  not  as  other  men  are,  blinded  by  superstition,  but 
seated  aloft  in  the  clear  light  of  unapproachable  self- 
sacrifice — the  martyrs  of  a  grand  idea. 

The  end  of  it  all  is  that  they  become  as  self-involved 


1 70  Immortality, 

as  the  Simeon  Stylites  of  the  poet,  as  self-righteous,  and 
as  self-conceited.  Aiming  at  the  utter  denial  of  self, 
thej  rfrrive  at  the  utter  assertion  of  self. 

And  this  result  follows,  because  the  self-sacrifice  put 
forward  bj  these  theorists  is  not  self-sacrifice  at  allj  but 
the  immolation  of  the  best  and  most  aspiring  part  of 
our  nature.  They  give  up  what  is  good,  and  call  it 
self-sacrifice.  It  is  an  inversion  of  the  truth,  for  self- 
sacrifice  is  surrendering  what  is  wrong,  or  pleasurable, 
for  the  sake  of  good  to  others.  There  are  certain  ne- 
cessary elements  in  an  act  of  true  self-sacrifice.  It 
must  be  in  itself  a  moral  act,  and  distinctly  felt  as  such 
by  the  actor,  else  one  throws  the  halo  of  self- surrender 
over  evil ;  it  must  not  be  merely  instinctive,  but  done 
with  a  rational  belief  that  it  will  produce  good ;  and 
the  doer  of  it  must  not  give  up  or  weaken  any  element 
in  his  nature,  the  existence  and  strong  existence  of 
which,  even  in  a  single  individual,  is  of  importance  for 
the  progress  of  the  race.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to 
crucify  a  high  desire  for  the  sake  of  attaining  an 
ideal.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  give  up  what  is  true 
for  the  sake  of  being  more  true.  That  is  as  absurd 
as  giving  up  one  friend  for  the  sake  of  being  a  more 
perfect  friend  to  another.  You  do  not  gain,  but  lose 
so  much  of  power  of  friendship.  And  those  who  sur- 
render the  hope  of  immortal  life,  for  the  sake  of  being 
freed  from  all  thought  of  self,  do  not  gain  the  self-sacri- 
ficing heart,  they  only  take  away  one  of  the  motive 
powers  of  self-sacrifice. 

On  the  whole,  we  want  clearer  notions  of  self-sacri- 
fice.     There   are   some   things   we  have   no  right  to 


Immortality.  \  7  r 

give  up.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  surrender  our  con- 
science, though  we  might  save  a  whole  nation  by  doing 
so.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  be  false  to  our  own  soul, 
for  the  sake  of  those  we  love,  as  the  martyr  would  have 
been  had  he  worshipped  Jupitor,  because  his  father  and 
mother  wept  at  his  feet,  and  were  left  to  ruin  by  his 
death.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  commit  suicide,  as  in 
some  novels,  for  the  sake  of  the  happiness  of  others. 
It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  marry  one  who  loves  you, 
because  you  do  not  wish. him  or  her  to  suffer,  when 
you  do  not  love  in  return — it  is  self-destruction.  It 
is  not  self-sacrifice  to  cast  aside  immortality,  that  it 
may  not  vitiate  by  a  taint  of  self  your  doing  good.  It 
is  spiritual  suicide  ;  nay,  more,  there  is  a  hidden  selfish- 
ness in  it,  for  he  who  does  this  is  endeavouring  to 
secure  his  own  ideal  at  the  expense  of  the  race  of  men 
whom  he  deprives  of  the  hope  which  more  than  all  else 
has  cheered  and  strengthened  them  in  the  battle  against 
evil.  It  is  selfish  to  wilfully  shut  our  eyes  to  this,  that 
we  may  indulge  a  fancy  of  our  own. 

For  the  sake  of  right  reason,  if  not  for  the  sake  of 
God„  do  not  let  yourself  be  tricked  out  of  your  belief  in 
immortality  by  a  subtile  seeming  good,  by  an  appeal  to  a 
false  idea  of  self-sacrifice.  First  cast  aside  the  theology 
which  has  given  rise  to  this  twisted  notion  of  self-sacri- 
fice, and  then  with  a  clear  judgment  you  will  recognise 
that  the  true  self-sacrifice  is  not  incompatible  with  the 
reward  of  that  immortal  life  which  is  in  itself  nothing 
less  than  the  life  of  self-sacrifice.  Your  smile  will  then 
be  a  quiet  smile  when  men  tell  you  to  give  up  longing 
for  immortality,  because  it  is  a  selfish  ground  of  action. 


172  Immortality, 

What,  you  will  say,  is  it  selfish  to  hope  to  be  for  ever 
unselfish,  is  it  selfish  to  desire  to  be  at  one  with  the 
life  of  Him  who  finds  his  life  in  giving  Himself  away  ? 
Ts  it  selfish  to  aspire  to  that  fuller  life  which  is  found 
in  living  in  the  lives  of  others  by  watchful  love  of  them  ? 
These  are  my  rewards,  and  every  one  of  them  ministers 
to  and  secures  unselfishness. 

Lastly,  there  is  another  reason  for  the  denial  of  im- 
mortality, which  arises  from  theological  teaching.  It 
is  the  extremely  dull  and  limited  notions  of  the  future 
life.  We  have  too  mu(^h  transferred  to  our  northern 
Christianity  and  our  active  existence  of  thought  the 
Oriental  conceptions  of  heaven  drawn  from  the  book  of 
the  Revelation.  We  have  taken  them  literally  instead 
of  endeavouring  to  win  the  spiritual  thoughts  of  which 
these  descriptions  are  but  the  form.  And  literally  taken 
they  are  wholly  unsuitable  to  our  Teutonic  nature.  They 
make  the  future  life  seem  to  our  minds  a  lazy  dreamy 
existence,  in  which  all  that  is  quickest  and  most  vital  in 
us  would  stagnate,  in  which  all  that  makes,  life  interest- 
ing, dramatic,  active,  would  perish.  It  is  not  needless 
to  notice  this.  For  it  is  astonishing  how  even  among 
men  who  should  have  known  better,  the  early  childish 
conceptions  of  heaven  remain  as  realities.  I  have  met 
active-minded  working-people,  and  cultivated  men,  who 
looked  forward  with  dislike  to  death,  because  they 
dreaded  the  dulness  of  the  next  world.  Till  we  have  a 
higher,  more  human  conception  of  the  future  life  than 
that  usually  given,  we  shall  not  restore  to  society  a  joy- 
ful belief  in  immortality.  Our  theology  wants  a  picture 
of  the  world  to  come,  fitted  to  meet  a  la^er  and  a 


Immortality,  1 73 

worthier  ideal  of  humanity.  If  we  wish  to  awake 
interest  in  the  future  life,  we  must  add  to  the  merelj 
spiritual  ideas  of  uncultivated  teachers,  others  which 
will  minister  food  to  the  imagination,  the  intellect,  the 
social  and  national  instincts  of  man ;  nay,  more,  if  we 
believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  others  which 
minister  to  the  delight  of  the  purified  senses. 

We  need  only  go  back  to  the  revelation  of  Christ  to 
gain  the  true  ground  of  this  wider  conception.  He 
revealed  God  as  each  man's  Father.  Now  the  highest 
work  of  a  father  is  education,  and  the  end  of  God's  edu- 
cation of  man  is  the  finished  and  harmonious  develop- 
ment of  all  his  powers.  If  in  the  future  life  our  intellect 
or  imagination  is  left  undeveloped,  it  is  not  education  ; 
and  we  cannot  conceive  of  a  perfect  fatherhood.  If 
all  our  powers  have  not  there  their  work  and  their 
opportunities  of  expansion,  the  full  idea  of  fatherhood 
is  lost.  If  any  of  our  true  work  here  on  earth  is  fruitless 
work,  and  does  not  enable  us  to  produce  tenfold  results 
in  a  future  life,  no  matter  what  that  work  may  be,  work 
of  the  artist,  historian,  politician,  merchant,  then  the 
true  conception  of  education,  and  therefore  of  God's 
fatherhood,  is  lost. 

No,  brethren,  we  rest  on  this, '  I  go  to  prepare  a  place 
for  you.'  A  place  is  prepared  for  each  one  of  us ;  a  place 
fitted  to  our  distinct  character,  a  separate  work  fitted 
to  develope  that  character  into  perfection,  and  in  the 
doing  of  which  we  shall  have  the  continual  delight  of 
feeling  that  we  are  growing ;  a  place  not  only  for  us, 
but  for  all  our  peculiar  powers.  Our  ideals  shall  become 
more  beautiful,  and  minister  continually  to  fresh  aspira- 


1 74  Immortality. 

tion,  so  that  stagnation  will  be  impossible.  Feelings 
for  wbicb  we  found  no  food  here,  sball  there  be  satisfied 
with  work,  and  exercised  by  action  into  exquisite  per- 
fection. Faint  possibilities  of  our  nature,  which  came 
and  went  before  us  here  like  swallows  on  the  wing, 
shall  there  be  grasped  and  made  realities.  The  outlines 
of  life  shall  be  filled  up,  the  rough  statue  of  life  shall  be 
finished.  We  shall  be  not  only  spiritual  men,  but  men 
complete  in  Christ,  the  perfect  flower  of  humanity. 

And  this  shall  be  in  a  father's  home,  where  all  the 
dearest  dreams  of  home-life  shall  find  their  happy  ful- 
filment; in  a  perfect  society,  where  all  the  charming 
interchange  of  thought  and  giving  and  receiving  of  each 
other's  good  which  make  our  best  happiness  on  earth, 
shall  be  easier,  freer,  purer,  more  intimate,  more  spiri- 
tual, more  intellectual ;  and  lastly,  in  a  perfect  polity, 
'  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,'  where  all  the  interests 
of  large  national  life  shall  find  room  and  opportunities 
for  development ;  and  binding  all  together,  the  omni- 
present Spirit  of  love,  goodness,  truth,  and  life,  whom 
we  call  God,  and  whom  we  know  in  Jesus  Christ,"  shall 
abide  in  us,  and  we  in  Him,  '  for  He  is  not  a  God  of 
the  dead,  but  of  the  living :  for  all  live  unto  Him.' 


Immorialiiy,  1 75 


IMMORTALITY, 

*  For  lie  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living :  for  all  live  unto 
him.' — Luke  xx.  38. 


It  is  remarkable  that  the  theological  questions  which 
are  now  most  widely  spoken  of  are  no  longer  those 
which  presuppose  a  general  confession  of  Christianity, 
but  other  and  deeper  questions  altogether;  questions 
the  very  discussion  of  which  shows  how  strongly  the 
foundations  of  the  religious  world  are  moved.  It  is  now 
frequently  asked  whether  there  be  a  God  or  not,  whether 
immortality  be  not  a  mere  idol  of  the  imagination.  It 
is  plain,  when  society  has  got  down  to  these  root  ques- 
tions, that  modern  theology  in  its  past  form  has  no 
longer  the  power  to  do  its  work,  otherwise  these  things 
would  be  axioms.  It  is  plain  that,  if  Christianity  is  to 
keep  its  ground,  it  must  go  through  a  revolution,  and 
present  itself  in  a  new  form  to  the  minds  of  men. 

It  is  the  characteristic  excellence  of  Christianity  that 
it  is  able  to  do  this.  For  with  regard  to  his  own  religion 
the  saying  of  Christ  remains  for  ever  true — that  saying 
which  declares  the  continued  progress  of  Revelation, 
*  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  to  you,  but  ye  cannot 
bear  them  now.' 

But  when  the  time  \lraws  near  for  the  growtli  of 


176  Immortality. 

Christian  thought  around  a  new  idea,  and  for  the  re- 
generation of  Christian  practice  by  the  life  which  flows 
from  the  fresh  thought,  the  change  is  heralded  by  the 
appearance,  sometimes  in  infidel  teaching,  sometimes  in 
isolated  religious  teachers,  of  scattered  and  disconnected 
truths,  which  do  not  naturally  belong  to  the  old  form  of 
religion,  or  which  are  set  lip  in  opposition  to  it.  Being 
half-truths,  or  isolated  truths,  they  point  forward  to  a 
complete  form  which  shall  supplement  and  include 
-them.  At  the  present  day  many  of  the  new  truths, 
or  rather,  of  the  extensions  of  the  old  truths,  which 
Christianity  will  have  to  absorb,  are  to  be  found  in 
infidel  teaching,  combined  with  a  rejection  of  immor- 
tality and  of  the  being  of  a  God.  We  shall  search 
for  those  truths  to-day,  and  try  to  show  that  «vithout 
the  doctrine  of  immortality  they  have  no  lasting  value, 
but  that  in  union  with  it  they  are  of  real  importance, 
and  ought  to  be  claimed  for  Christianity. 

But  first,  let  us  examine  for  a  moment  what  is  taking 
place  at  present  with  regard  to  Christian  and  infidel 
teaching. 

During  the  time  when  an  old  form  of  Christian 
thought  is  slowly  passing  away,  having  exhausted  all  it 
had  to  give,  it  repeats  again  and  again  with  the  garrulity 
of  old  age  the  phrases  which  in  its  youth  were  the  ex- 
pressions of  living  thought  and  feeling.  They  fitted 
then  the  wants  of  men,  and  they  were  the  means  by 
which  religious  life  advanced  and  religious  truth 
developed.  But  being  naturally  cast  into  a  fixed  intel- 
lectual system,  they  remained  behind  the  movement  they 
began ;  they  made  men  grow,  but  men  outgrew  them, 


Immortality*  177 

for  systems  become  old,  but  mankind  is  always  young. 
It  follows,  then,  almost  of  necessity,  that  when  a  certain 
point  in  this  progress  is  reached,  there  will  be  a  strong 
reaction  against  the  old  form  of  Christianity,  and  the 
reaction  will  contain  the  assertion  of  that  which  is  want- 
ing in  the  dying  phase,  and  a  protest  against  its  weak- 
ness. Both  the  assertion  and  the  protest  will  often  be 
combined  with  infidel  teaching,  for  there  will  be  many 
who,  seeing  these  garments  of  Christianity  rotting  away, 
and  hearing  them  declared  to  be  Christianity  itself, 
will  believe  the  declaration,  and  attack  not  only  the  gar- 
ments but  the  living  spirit  itself  which  is  waiting  to 
be  reclothed.  The  infidel  teaching  on  religious  subjects 
will  then  consist  of  two  parts,  a  negative  and  a  positive 
part.  The  negative  will  deny  or  ignore  all  Christian 
truth  as  then  taught;  the  positive  will  assert  some 
ideas  necessary  for  the  present  time  and  answering  to 
some  of  its  religious  wants.  It  is  the  business  of 
Christian  teachers,  while  setting  aside  the  negations, 
to  claim  as  their  own  those  positive  ideas  which,  though 
developed  in  a  foreign  soil,  are  yet  derived  from  Chris*- 
tian  seeds.  They  will  say,  '  We  have  learnt  from  our 
enemies ;  they  have  told  us  what  the  age  desires.  In 
answer  to  that  desire  they  have  unwittingly  fallen  back 
upon  Christian  ideas  and  expanded  them,  led  uncon- 
sciously thereto  by  the  ever-working  spirit  of  God. 
Those  expansions  are  ours ;  we  did  not  see  them  before, 
but  we  claim  them  now.'  If  we  do  that,  the  infidelity 
of  the  infidel,  that  is,  his  negations,  will  slowly  share 
the  fate  of  all  negations ;  and  the  scattered  truths  he 
teaches,  taken  into  Christianity,  find  in  it  their  vital 


178  Immorialify. 

union  with  all  its  past,  and  form  stepping-stones  for  its 
future  growth. 

This  is  the  general  sketch  of  the  movement  in  which 
we  are  now  involved.  We  are  at  that  point  in  it  in 
which  we  are  beginning  to  recognise  that  the  infidel  is 
teaching  a  few  truths  which  naturally  belong  to  Chris- 
tianity. But  we  have  not  yet  fully  assimilated  those 
truths,  or  established  their  connection  with  those  we 
possess.'  Not  till  that  is  done  will  our  wider  form  of 
Christian  thought  be  completed. 

Let  us  take  the  two  main  forms  of  infidelity  which  pre- 
vail— secularism  and  Comtism ;  the  first,  widely  spread 
among  the  working-classes ;  the  second — the  religion  of 
positivism,  to  call  it  by  its  other  name — held  by  a  small 
number  of  the  cultivated  class. 

Both  of  these  hold  in  them  ideas  which  ought  to  be 
ours.  It  is  said  that  these  ideas  are  foreign  to  Chris- 
tianity. On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  they  are  the 
children  of  Christianity  bom  in  an  alien  land,  and 
moreover,  that  they  fit  more  harmoniously  into  the 
Christian  system  than  into  the  system  with  which  they 
are  now  united. 

Of  the  coarse  brutal  secularism  which  does  nothing 
but  deny  and  bluster,  I  have  nothing  to  say;  but  there 
is  another  form  of  it  which  does  not  so  much  deny  as 
say,  '  We  do  not  know ;  there  may  be  another  life  to 
come,  there  may  be  a  God,  but  we  cannot  prove  these 
things.  They  are  wrapped  in  mystery ;  they  leave  us 
in  the  mystery.  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  gives  no  an- 
swer to  us.  All  the  feelings  which  we  are  asked  to 
feel  about  Him,  all  the  hopes  and  fears  which  cluster 


Immortal! ty.  1 79 

round  the  doctrine  of  immortality,  only  liinder  our 
practical  work,  make  us  think  of  ourselves  and  not  of 
our  duty ;  nay,  more,  they  do  harm,  for  more  suffering  and 
evil  have  come  upon  the  race,  more  cruelty  and  more 
hindrances  to  progress  have  arisen  from  these  notions 
than  from  any  others.  We  will  put  them  utterly  aside, 
and  act  by  faith  in  other  ideas.' 

This  is  their  denial,  and  even  from  this  we  may  learn 
much.  For  the  God  the  conscientious  secularist  denies 
is  the  God  of  whom  we  spoke  last  Sunday — a  God  of 
arbitrary  will,  who  makes  salvation  depend  on  assent 
to  cei-tain  systems  of  theology,  and  men  responsible 
for  sins  committed  before  they  were  born ;  who  dooms 
the  greater  part  of  the  race  to  eternal  wickedness. 
And  the  immortality  he  does  not  care  for  is  an  immor- 
tality based  on  the  selfish  doctrine  of  which  we  also 
spoke,  which  by  working  on  the  fears  and  greed-  ot 
men  produces  persecution  in  public  and  continual  brood- 
ing on  self  in  private — above  all,  which  destroys  uncon- 
scious aspiration.  Looking  at  this,  we  learn  our  faults  ; 
we  are  driven  back  to  that  conception  of  a  Father  which 
Christ  revealed.  We  are  taught  to  preach  a  loftier  view 
of  the  nature  of  immortal  life.  We  turn  and  say  to  the 
secularist,  *  The  God  whom  you  reject  we  reject ;  the 
immortality  you  deny,  we  deny  also.' 

But  we  may  learn  much  more  from  what  he  asserts 
as  his  religion.  He  believes  that  nature  contains  aU 
things  necessary  for  the  guidance  of  mankind,  that 
duty  consists  in  a  steadfast  pursuit,  according  to  the 
laws  of  nature,  of  results  tending  to  the  happiness  of  the 
race,  and  that  iu  doing  that  duty  he  becomes  happy. 


1 80  Immortality. 

His  God  is  duty,  liis  Bible  is  nature^  liis  heaven,  is  in  the 
happiness  of  man  and  the  progress  of  mankind  to»  per- 
fection. His  sin  is  in  violating  natural  laws,  because 
such  a  violation  is  sure  to  bring  evil  on  men. 

The  two  main  ideas  running  through  this  we  ought 
to  learn  to  make  more  prominent  in  Christianity — the 
idea  that  man  has  a  higher  duty  to  mankind  than  to 
himself,  the  idea  of  the  progress  of  the  race  to  perfec- 
tion. The  first  is  distinctly  contained  in  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  life  of  Christ ;  the  second  in  the  Christian 
conception  of  God's  Fatherhood.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  o«r  Christianity  has  not  sufficiently  dwelt 
on  these  thoughts,  and  that  the  Christianity  of  the  future 
must  absorb  them.  We  accept  then  with  thankfulness 
this  teaching  from  without,  but  we  say  that  to  fulfil  it 
in  action  and  to  bring  it  home  to  the  hearts  and  lives 
of  men,  there  must  be  added  to  it  the  Christian  ideas  of 
God  and  of  immortality.  The  absence  of  these  deprives 
the  secularist  of  any  certain  ground  for  that  reverence 
for  human  nature  and  for  that  faith  in  ultimate  per- 
fection without  which  there  can  be  no  joyous  self-sacri- 
fice for  man,  no  unfaltering  work  for  his  progress. 
Their  absence  deprives  him  of  the  mighty  impulse  which 
arises  from  a  profound  love  for  an  all-loving  person,  and 
replaces  it  by  the  weaker  impulse  which  is  born  of  love 
to  an  abstraction  called  duty,  or  to  a  'Humanity '  which 
is  always  disappointing  the  love  which  is  lavished  on  it, 
till  our  love,  feeding  on  imperfection,  becomes  itself  en- 
feebled or  corrupt.  Their  absence  deprives  him  of  the 
idea  which  more  than  all  others  makes  a  religious  so- 
ciety coherent — that  all  its  members  are  held  together 


Immortality.  i  S  i 

by  the  indwelling  in  each,  and  in  the  whole,  of  one  per- 
sonal spirit  of  good ;  of  the  idea  which  makes  work  for 
human  progress  persistent — that  all  work  done  here  is 
carried  to  perfection  in  a  kindlier  world,  not  only  in  the 
everlasting  life  of  each  worker,  but  in  the  mighty  whole 
of  a  human  race  destined  to  slowly  form  itself,  through 
the  undying  labour  of  each  and  all  in  God,  into  the 
full-grown  man.  And,  finally,  their  absence  deprives  him 
of  any  large  power  of  appeal  to  those  deep-seated  feel- 
ings of  awe,  mystery,  and  adoration,  which  are  drawn 
out  in  men  by  the  idea  of  God ;  and  which  are,  when 
linked  to  the  inspiration  which  flows  from  the  love  of 
a  perfect  man,  the  source  of  that  enthusiasm  which 
supports  and  continues  a  religion. 

Practically,  then,  we  should  expect  a  priori,  that 
secularism,  on  account  of  its  negation  of  God  and 
immortality,  could  not  float  its  noble  ideas.  And  this 
is  really  the  fact ;  it  has  had  many  followers,  but  the 
greater  number  do  not  remain  in  it ;  they  change  out 
of  it  into  many  Christian  sects,  or  they  pass  from  entire 
unbelief  into  credulity.  Some  are  the  victims  of  remote 
and  strange  phases  of  fanaticism ;  others,  like  Robert 
Owen,  end  in  the  opposite  extreme  of  *  spiritualism.' 

'Not  have  the  societies  or  sects  of  secularism  any  co- 
herence; none  of  them  can  keep  up  a  permanent  organi- 
sation, and  their  quarrels  are  as  bitter  as  they  say  that 
those  of  Christians  are.  The  very  best  among  them 
pass  through  life  doing  their  duty  to  the  last,  but  in  a 
kind  of  mournful  hopelessness,  their  heart  unsatisfied 
though  their  intellect  may  be  at  rest ;  for  there  is,  deep 
down  in  their  minds,  the  painful  suspicion  that  clinging 


i82  Immortality. 

to  negations  may  after  all  be  itself  as  blind  a  super- 
stition as  any  of  those  which  they  attack. 

To  snm  np  all,  there  are  a  few  ideas  in  secularism 
which  owe  their  origin  to  the  insensible  growth  of  the 
ideas  of  Christ  among  men.  These  ideas  are  in  advance 
of  the  accepted  Christianity  of  this  day,  but  they  are 
inoperative  in  secularism.  When  we  take  them  into 
connection  with  the  belief  in  God  and  immortality,  they 
will  become  operative,  but  they  will  modify  the  present 
form  of  Christianity.  * 

Secondly,  we  consider  the  religion  of  positivism  in 
the  same  light.  It  maintains,  though  in  a  different  and 
more  cultured  form,  the  same  views  on  these  points  as 
secularism.  But  it  avoids  negations  for  the  most  part, 
and  confines  itself  to  saying  that  Christianity  has 
nothing  more  to  give  to  man  ;  that  its  good  influence  is 
exhausted  for  the  western  nations.  In  it  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  God  and  immortality  entirely  disappears.  In 
spite  of  thi^,  and  far  more  than  secularism,  it  has  drunk 
deep  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity  :  most  of  its  doctrines 
may  be  directly  inferred  from  the  teaching  of  Christ 
and  the  Apostles,  and  in  fact  are  unconsciously  derived 
from  it.  Only  it  is  to  be  said,  that  the  accredited  Chris- 
tianity of  the  day  has  not  yet  arrived  at  these  expan- 
sions of  Christian  ideas,  that,  so  far,  the  followers  of 
Comte  's  religion  are  in  front  of  us,  and  that  we  ought, 
in  spite  of  the  curious  and  infidel  surrounding  of  these 
new  thoughts,  to  claim  them  as  by  right  our  own  and 
embody  them  in  Christianity. 

The  future  Christianity  will  have  to  take  into  itself 


Immortality.  i  Z^ 

sucli  doctrines  as  social  and  international  self-sacrifice, 
wliicli  is  a  direct  and  logical  expansion  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  self-sacrifice.  It  is  surprising,  if  anything 
is  surprising,  that  we  have  not  done  this  already ;  that 
in  our  pulpits  we  only  speak  of  the  self-sacrifice  of  one 
person  for  another,  and  almost  nothing  of  the  duty  of 
the  citizen  to  sacrifice  himself  for  his  parish,  for  social 
ends,  for  the  State  ;  of  the  duty  of  nations  to  sacrifice 
their  own  interests  for  the  sake  of  the  community  of 
nations,  and  of  the  duty  of  the  community  of  nations  to 
sacrifice  much  in  the  present  for  the  sake  of  the  future 
welfare  of  the  whole  race.  Nor  must  we  leave  out 
other  positivist  doctrines,  such  as  the  necessity  of  giving 
to  each  of  the  human  faculties  their  appropriate  work 
in  connection  with  a  lirrge  idea  of  religion — a  doctrine 
contained,  as  I  think,  in  S.  Paul's  view  of  the  relation 
of  gifts  and  of  distinct  characters  to  the  growth  of  the 
race  in  God,  and  of  the  working*  of  these  differing  gifts 
by  a  divine  spirit  for  that  purpose ;  nor  yet  that  other 
doctrine  of  the  sanctification  of  all  human  effort  to  the 
good  of  man,  so  that  social  feeling  may  be  victorious 
over  self-love,  which  is  in  fact  the  re-declaration,  in  a 
wider  form  than  we  declare  it,  of  the  whole  aim  and 
spirit  of  Christ's  life ;  nor  yet  that  other  doctrine  of  the 
union  of  science,  art,  and  morality  into  an  harmonious 
whole,  under  the  regenerating  influence  of  the  worship 
of  humanity — a  conception  which  we  shall  take,  and 
only  change  by  replacing  the  worship  of  humanity  by 
the  worship  of  the  Christ  as  the   representative  and 

♦  '  All  these  worketh  that  one  and  the  selfsame  Spirit,  dividing  to  every 
man  severally  as  he  will.' 


184  Immorta  lily. 

concentration  into  an  ideal  man  of  tlie  whole  race  as  it 
is  in  God ;  nor  jet,  finally,  that  other  idea  of  the  race  as 
one  great  Being  ever  living  and  moving  on  by  the  service 
of  each  to  the  use  of  the  whole,  which  is,  in  truth,  the 
idea  of  the  race  as  '  the  full-grown  man '  laid  down  by 
S.  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  adding,  however, 
to  this  last  thought  that  which  gives  it  reality  and  con- 
crete form — the  belief  in  One  who  is  the  federal  Head  of 
this  great  Being,  because  He  is  Himself  in  perfection 
that  which  the  race  is  as  yet  imperfectly.  These  are  the 
doctrines  which  we  gladly  receive  as  expansions  of  our 
Christianity,  and  by  which  we  modify  our  present  form 
of  it. 

But  we  shall  absorb^  them,  retaining  that  which 
the  religion  of  positivism  leaves  out  as  unnecessary, 
but  without  which,  as  we  think,  these  new  ideas  die 
of  starvation — the  belief  in  the  Being  of  a  loving 
Father,  and  in  the  endless  life  of  each  and  all.  That 
there  does  exist  in  man  the  desire  of  adoring  an 
all-embracing  Being,  and  the  desire  of  immortality, 
positivism,  unlike  secularism,  is  too  wise  to  deny,  and 
it  attempts  to  provide  for  these  two  passions  in  its 
religion.  Instead  of  God,  it-presents  us  with  humanity 
conceived  of  as  a  vast  organism  composed  of  all  men 
and  women  who  have  lived  for  the  sake  of  mankind. 
This  is  the  Being  we  are  to  worship,  and  of  whom  we 
ourselves  are  part ;  we  devote  our  thoughts  to  the  know- 
ledge of  her,  our  afflictions  to  her  love,  our  actions  to 
her  service.  To  become,  in  the  thoughts  of  men,  at 
one  with  this  Being  whose  life  renews  itself  through- 
out  all  time,  and  to  be  commemorated  and  loved  by 


hnmortality.  185 

men  to  come,  to  have  our  immortality  in  the  continued 
existence  and  afifection  of  the  race — this  is  the  reward 
and  this  the  eternal  life  which  this  religion  offers  to 
onr  acceptance. 

Well,  if  such  an  object  of  worship,  and  such  an 
immortality,  satisfy  the  passions  and  longings,  the 
existence  of  which  the  positivist  confesses  in  others,  it 
will  be  very  strange.  He  allows  that  they  do  not 
satisfy  men  as  at  present  constituted,  that  the  old 
feelings  must  be  driven  out  before  tlie  new  gospel  be 
received.  But  we  are  told  that  education  from  the 
positivist  point  of  view  will  transfer  the  feelings  now 
expended  on  God  to  this  new  Being,  and  that  the 
aspirations  which  now  cluster  round  immortality  will 
have  their  satisfaction  in  the  delight  of  having  our 
work  interwoven  with  the  progress  of  mankind. 
Against  these  assertions  one  can  only  appeal  to  time 
for  a  full  reply.  But  it  does  seem  true  that  men,  if 
they  worship,  wish  to  worship  what  is  perfect  and 
absolute,  and  that  the  worship  of  an  imperfect  and 
growing  humanity  cannot  ever  satisfy  their  wifih. 
And  it  also  seems  true  that  men,  if  they  worship,  wish 
to  worship  one  whom  they  can  distinctly  conceive  as  a 
person  in  relation  with  themselves,  and  in  whom,  as 
the  ideal  Man,  each  man  can  love  his  race.  The 
Great-Being  of  the  Comtist  does  not  realise  this  wish. 
The  organism  of  which  he  speaks  is  not  distinct  to 
thought,  is  not  a  person,  is  not  capable  of  entering  into 
^  separate  relations  of  affection  with  individuals.  The 
whole  thing,  while  professing  to  be  specially  human, 
seems  to  me  specially  inhuman.    Nor  will  men,  I  think. 


1 8  6  Immoria  lity. 

be  satisfied  to  live  only  in  tlie  memory  of  tliose  to  come, 
and  to  exchange  tlie  promise  of  immortal  life  (growing 
fuller,  -wiser,  more  intense  in  work  and  enjoyment  of 
growth,  more  individual  and  yet  less  liable  to  self- 
absorption,  every  day)  for  the  promise  of  annihilation 
except  so  far  as  their  influence  and  acts  remain  in  the 
continued  progress  of  the  race.  They  will  say  :  ^  All 
you  promise  me  I  have  already  in  Christianity,  and 
the  something  more  which  you  do  not  promise.  The 
past  and  all  its  human  story  is  far  more  living  to 
me  than  it  is  to  you.  I  belong  in  Christ  (who  has 
redeemed  and  is  redeeming  all  men)  to  all  the  spirits 
who  have  been.  I  am  a  part,  not  of  a  "  humanity,"  all 
the  back  portions  of  which  are  dead,  but  of  a  mighty 
army  of  living  men,  who,  though  called  dead  to  us,  are 
yet  united  to  us  in  spirit,  and  doing  human  work  in 
God,  in  a  world  to  which  I  am  going.  Nor  do  I  only 
belong  to  the  past  and  present  of  mankind ;  I  belong 
in  God,  who  holds  eternity  within  Himself,  to  all 
the  future  of  mankind.  Those  yet  unborn  are  living 
in  Him,  and  therefore  bound  to  me.  And  all  the 
beings  of  the  human  race,  on  earth  and  in  heaven,  are 
advancing  together — a  vast  polity,  under  the  education 
of  the  Lord  and  King,  whose  name  is  Eternal  Love. 
Till  you  can  bring  your  conception  up  to  the  level  of 
that  magnificent  conception,  we  refuse  to  take  it  into 
serious  consideration.  It  is  a  lower  thought,  and  we 
cannot  change  gold  against  lead.' 

We  believe,  then,  in  the  eternal  progress  of  the  race 
in  God,  not  only  in  the  immortality  of  individuals,  but  in 
the  immortality  of  mankind.     It  made  men  fairly  object 


Immortality.  187 

to  immortality  when  it  was  held  to  secure  to  a  few  con- 
tinuous union  with  good,  and  to  the  many  continuous 
union  with  evil.  It  is  to  this  false  and  cruel  view  'that 
we  owe  the  spread  and  the  strength  of  secularism.  But 
day  by  day  the  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  evil  is  being 
driven  into  its  native  night  before  a  higher  view  of  the 
nature  of  God,  and  a  nobler  belief  in  Him  as  the  undying 
righteousness.  We  are  beginning  to  understand  what 
Christ  meant  when  He  said,  *  Other  sheep  I  have,  which 
are  not  of  this  fold :  them  also  I  must  bring ;  and  there 
shall  be  one  flock  and  one  shepherd.'  It  was  a  *  must,' 
iin  imperative  duty  which  the  Saviou^elt,  and  He  spoke 
in  the  name  of  God,  who  feels  the  same  as  a  necessity 
of  His  relation  to  us. 

The  act  of  creation  lays  on  us  a  duty.  We  bring  a 
child  into  the  world,  and  the  absolute  imperative  of  God 
is  on  us  to  feed,  educate,  and  love  to  the  end,  that  to 
which  we  have  given  life.  We  do  our  best  for  the  child, 
but  we  will  suppose  that  all  goes  wrong.  We  expend  our 
love  upon  him,  he  rejects  it ;  we  punish,  and  he  hardens 
under  punishment  and  leaves  us ;  we  go  after  him,  and 
he  refuses  to  return ;  we  give  him  up  to  himself  for  a 
time,  and  he  grows  worse,  and  dies  impenitent.  But 
if  we  are  of  a  true  human  nature,  we  cannot  forget  him. 
Our  first  thought  in  the  other  world  is  our  erring  son, 
and  if  "^e  can — and  I  for  one  do  not  d#ubt  it — our  one 
effort  in  the  eternal  life  will  be  to  find  him  out  and 
redeem  him  to  our  heart  by  any  sacrifice  which  love 
can  prompt.  And  even  could  love  not  move  us,  duty 
would  call  us  to  thii^rightoous  quest.  We  mmt  bring 
our  wanderer  home. 


1 88  Immortality. 

It  is  so,  I  firmly  believe,  "with  God  and  men.  By  the 
very  act  of  creation  God  has  laid  upon  Himself  a  ne- 
cessity of  redemption.  We  wander  from  Him,  and  He 
punishes  us  through  His  spiritual  laws ;  we  reap  that 
which  we  have  sown ;  we  fill  our  belly  with  the  husks 
which  the  swine  eat.  He  lets  us  eat  of  the  fruit  of  our 
own  devices,  the  day  of  retribution  comes,  and  our 
pleasures  turn  to  gall,  our  irritated  desires  become  our 
hell.  Lower  and  lower  still  we  sink,  and  suffering  is 
hard  on  us,  for  impenitent  man  must  touch  the  abyss  of 
God's  chastising  tenderness  before  pride  and  self  be 
conquered  into  pej^itence.  But  God  waits  and  works  ; 
'  Them  also  I  must  bring '  speaks  the  necessity  which 
flows  from  His  Fatherhood.  All  through  our  deepest 
ruin  God's  victorious  love  is  opposed  to  man's  reluctant 
hatred  and  despair ;  till  at  last  they,  being  of  the  finite 
finite,  and  of  the  dead  things  of  the  universe  dead,  are 
shattered  to  pieces  by  persistent  love ;  and  the  child, 
come  to  himself,  calls  out  from  the  depths  of  a  divine 
misery,  '  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father.'  Far  off  his 
Father  sees  him,  and  in  triumphant  joy  receives  him: 
'  This  my  son  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again ;  was  lost, 
and  is  found.'  It  will  be  thus  within  eternity,  till,  in  the 
fulness  of  charity,  there  shall  be  at  last  one  flock  and  one 
shepherd.  Most  tender  and  most  true  of  images.  Con- 
trast it,  in  its  lieauty,  with  the  common  notion  of  the 
future  of  the  race  ;  that  notion  which  has  maddened  men 
into  atheism  and  hatred  of  immortality — a  small  flock 
on  which  all  the  infinite  love  of  the  infinite  goodness  is 
outpoured,  and   beyond  its  fold   a*howling  wilderness 


Immortality.  1 89 

of  lost  and  ruined  seals,  lost  and  ruined  for  ever  and 
ever,  and  rained  upon  by  the  eternal  fires  of  tlio  ever- 
lasting anger  of  a  vindictive  God.  Tt  is  not  so ;  that  is 
not  our  God — nor  that  our  heaven,  nor  that  the  immor- 
tality for  which  we  cry.  God  must  bring  all  His  creatures 
to  Himself.  *  There  shall  be  one  flock  and  one  shepherd.' 
As  long  as  the  horror  of  everlasting  punishment,  or, 
as  it  may  be  better  expressed,  of  everlasting  evil, 
is  preached,  secularism  will  keep  alive.  Rough-think- 
ing men  at  this  time  of  the  world  cannot  stand  Mani- 
chaeism ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  deny  God, 
when  one  of  the  main  things  they  are  told  is  that 
God  either  keeps  up  evil  for  ever  in  His  universe,  or  is 
unable  to  put  an  end  to  it.  Nor  is  it  any  wonder  that 
they  become  unbelievers  in  Christianity,  when  a  doc- 
trine is  linked  to  Christianity  which  denies  their  moral 
instincts,  and  makes  them  look  on  God  as  the  sovereign 
t}Tant ;  which  forces  them  to  consider  the  story  of  re- 
demption as  either  a  weak  effort  on  the  part  of  an  in- 
capable God,  or  a  mockery  by  Him  of  His  creatures  on 
the  plea  of  a  love  which  they  see  as  scornful,  and  a 
justice  which  they  declare  to  be  favouritism.  I  pro- 
phesy, as  this  doctrine  perishes,  the  resurrection  of  the 
working-classes  from  secularism  into  faith  in  the  Father 
of  men.  I  foresee  a  brighter,  more  joyous,  more  natural 
Christianity,  in  the  midst  of  which  faith  and  hope  shall 
abide  and  love  which  never  faileth.  Fifty  years  hence 
we  shall  all  believe  in  the  victorious  power  of  good- 
ness, and  the  test  of  orthodoxy  shall  not  be  that  which  I 
once  heard  applied  to  a  young  clergyman,  *  Sir,  do  you 


IQO  Immortality. 

believe  in  the  devil  ? '  It  wiU  be  this :  *  Do  you  believe 
in  God?' 

Again,  tlie  doctrine  of  immortality  was  fairly  objected 
to  when  it  led  men  to  dwell  on  their  own  salvation  as 
the  first  thing,  when  it  promoted  the  idea  of  indi- 
vidualism to  the  loss  of  the  idea  of  association.  Ti)  this 
tendency  of  the  doctrine  we  owe  its  rejection  by  the 
positivist  religion,  for  it  injured  one  of  the  foremost 
doctrines  of  Comte — that  self-love  must  be  systema- 
tically subordinated  to  social  and  international  sacrifice ; 
that  all  men  and  nations  ought  to  be  bound  together  as 
one  man. 

The  tendency  against  which  there  has  been  this  re- 
action is  indeed  contained  in  the  Christian  doctrine  :  it 
does  dwell  on  and  deepen  individuality.  But  it  was  a 
shameful  thing  when  men  tore  away  this  element  of  the 
doctrine  from  its  brother-element,  isolated  it,  and  turned 
it,  as  a  half-truth,  into  a  lie.  For  the  doctrine  was  united 
on  its  other  side  to  the  frankest  sacrifice  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  whole ;  nay,  it  gave  men  to  understand 
that  without  the  largest  sacrifice,  immortal  life  could 
not  be  attained.  '  Whosoever  saveth  his  life  shall  lose 
it,'  said  Christ,  ^  and  whosoever  loseth  his  life,  the  same 
shall  save  it.'  He  Himself  was  the  Eternal  Life  because 
He  died  for  the  whole  world  of  men.  '  I  could  wish 
myself  accursed  from  Christ,'  said  S.  Paul,  'for  my 
brethren,  my  companions'  sake.'  There  was  no  base 
individualism  in  that  noble  speech ;  to  have  the  spirit 
which  can  say  it  is  to  have  immortal  life. 

ISfor  did  Christianity  in  its  relation  to  immortality 
shut  out  the  element  of  association.    Its  original  church 


Immortality.  191 

was  cliosen  from  mankind  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
all  mankind  into  it.  The  heathen  world  are  spoken  of 
as  apart  from  it,  but  only  as  then  apart  from  it;  its 
object  was  to  unite  all  nations  into  one,  to  bring  the 
wildest  and  remotest  within  its  realm.  No  class  was 
left  out,  no  classes  existed  in  its  spiritual  kingdom; 
all  were  children  of  God,  brothers  of  one  another ;  and 
this  was  their  immortal  life  in  the  spiritual  world,  that 
they  all  lived  in  and  for  each  other.  The  images  used 
to  describe  the  Christian  idea  of  the  Church  were 
images  of  association  ;  a  temple  built  of  living  stones — 
a  human  body,  whose  head  was  Christ,  from  whom  '  the 
whole  body  fitly  joined  together,  and  compacted  by  that 
which  every  joint  supplieth,  according  to  the  effectual 
working  in  the  measure  of  every  part,  maketh  increase 
of  the  body  to  the  edifying  of  itself  in  love.'  That  is 
not  the  doctrine  of  each  man  for  himself,  but  of  each 
for  all.  The  same  idea  is  more  fully  carried  out  in 
the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  chap.  xii.  And  I 
must  here  say  that  these  epistles  are  not  to  be  taken  as 
addressed  to  a  close  sect  of  believers ;  they  were  written 
to  all  the  Corinthian  Church,  and  through  them  to  all 
mankind.  Nor  were  these  words  spoken  to  specially 
holy  persons,  but  to  the  whole  body  of  men,  bad  or 
good,  in  that  Church;  to  fanatics,  to  drunkards  who 
scandalised  the  Supper  of  the  Lord;  to  defenders  of 
incest ;  to  men  fighting  with  one  another  and  divided 
into  religious  sects,  as  well  as  to  the  righteous.  He 
begins  by  speaking  of  the  diversities  of  gifts,  and  of 
their  use  in  the  progressive  education  of  the  whole 
body,  each  ministering  that  which  the  other  wanted. 


192  -  Immortality. 

He  goes  on  to  say  that  '  all  have  been  baptised  into  one 
body,  whether  Jew  or  Gentile,  bond  or  free;'  for  there 
was  no  separation  of  nations  or  classes.  The  isolation  of 
one  from  the  rest  is  then  condemned,  for  the  body  is  not 
one  member,  but  many  ;  nor  can  any  member  separate 
himself  from  the  body  because  he  is  not  as  another, 
'  for  if  the  foot  shall  say.  Because  I  am  not  the  hand 
I  am  not  of  the  body,  is  it  not  therefore  of  the  body  ? ' 
Nor  can  any  member  say  that  he  can  live  without  the 
life  of  any  other  member,  '  The  eye  cannot  say  to  the 
hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee — iiay,  even  those  mem- 
bers of  the  body  which  we  think  to  be  less  honourable, 
upon  these  we  bestow  more  abundant  honour,  and  our 
uncomely  parts  have  more  abundant  comeliness.  For 
our  comely  parts  have  no  need,  but  God  hath  tempered 
the  body  together,  having  given  more  abundant  honour 
to  that  part  which  lacked;  that  there  should  be  no 
schism  in  the  body,  but  that  the  members  should 
have  the  same  care  one  for  another.  And  whether 
one  member  suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it ; 
or  one  member  be  honoured,  all  the  members  rejoice 
with  it.'  Mazzini  himself  could  not  now,  eighteen 
hundred  years  after,  declare  more  strongly  the  prin- 
ciple of  association;  Comte  could  not  assert  more 
largely  the  doctrine  of  international  interdependence. 
Of  course  it  may  be  said  that  these  things  were 
written  solely  to  the  Christian  Church.  That  I  deny, 
if  the  Christian  Church  is  taken  to  mean  any  iso- 
lated body  at  any  time  in  history.  They  were  writ- 
ten to  describe  the  ideal  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  that  ideal  includes  all  mankind.     They  describe 


Immortality.  193 

what  ouglifc  to  be  the  relation  of  nations  to  nations,  of 
nations  to  tribes  of  every  type  and  colour,  of  men  to 
men  all  over  the  world.  And  they  describe  what  will 
be  in  the  fulness  of  time,  when  the  body  of  mankind, 
past,  present,  and  future,  shall  be  wholly  finished,  and 
the  actual  be  identical  with  the  ideal  Man. 

It  is  this  mighty  conception  which  wo  ought  to 
link  to  our  thought  of  immortality.  Without  it,  the 
desire  of  eternal  life  becomes  selfish  and  swiftly  falls 
to  evil ;  with  it,  it  grows  into  the  grandest  thought 
which  a  man  can  have  on  earth;  with  it,  immor- 
tality binds  itself  up  with  all  the  noblest  speculations 
of  patriot,  philosopher,  and  lover  of  man,  with  all  the 
ideas  of  our  time  which  have  regard  to  an  universal 
and  united  mankind,  giving  to  them  new  strength 
and  coherence,  a  fresher  hope,  an  unashamed  faith; 
and  leading  them  beyond  the  silence  and  inaction 
of  the  tomb,  where  positivist  and  secularist  bury  for 
ever  the  mighty  drama  of  the  past  of  men,  bids  them 
look  forward  with  a  morning  light  in  their  eyes  to 
the  endless  beauty  and  unfailing  work  of  a  mankind 
so  loved,  so  deeply  loved  by  us,  that  when  for  a  moment 
the  thought  crosses  our  brain  that  it  could  die  and  make 
no  sign,  something  seems  to  break  within  our  heart. 


194  Immortality 


IMMORTALITY, 

*  For  he  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living:  for  all  live  unto 
him.' — Luke  xx.  38, 


It  has  been  said  by  tbe  autbor  of  the  'History  of 
Eationalism '  tbat  '  tbe  discoveries  of  modern  science 
form  a  babit  of  mind  wbich  is  carried  far  beyond  tbe 
limits  of  pbysics.' 

Nowhere  is  tbis  more  true  tban  in  tbe  scornful  doubt 
with  wbicb  some  natural  pbilosopbers  meet  tbe  belief 
in  immortality,  or  in  tbe  bold  denial  wbicb  tbey  give 
it.  It  is  not  long  ago  since  I  beard  a  geologist  say, 
'  As  a  body  we  bave  given  up  tbe  belief  in  immortality.' 
It  may  be  wortb  wbile  to-day  to  suggest,  first,  a  cause 
for  tbis  wide- spread  surrender  of  an  old  belief  among 
tbe  men  wbo  pursue  physical  science  ;  secondly,  to  look 
into  tbe  reason  tbey  give  for  their  denial,  and  to  see 
if  that  reason  be  reasonable ;  and,  thirdly,  to  suggest  a 
proof  of  the  doctrine. 

1.  Tbe  cause  I  believe  to  be,  in  the  case  of  many  men 
of  science,  an  unequal  development  of  their  nature  ;  in 
other  words,  a  want  of  uniform  culture.  They  give  up 
their  whole  life  and  all  its  energy  to  the  study  of 
physical  phenomena.  In  these  phenomena  they  find 
nothing  spiritual.    The  strata  of  an  ocean-bed  tell  them 


Immortality,  195 

nothing,  in  their  vast  succession  of  life  and  death,  of  the 
eternal  continuance  of  the  individual.  The  combinations 
of  the  elements  do  not  speak  of  the  union  of  the  soul 
with  the  Eternal  Soul  of  God,  and  in  the  convolutions' 
of  the*  brain  and  the  interweaving  of  the  nerves  they 
will  not  discover  faith,  or  love,  or  reverence ;  or,  not 
being  able  to  deny  their  existence,  they  say  that  they 
dissolve  with  the  nerve  matter  of  which  they  are  modes 
of  motion.  Not  only  do  they  study  nothing  but  these 
things,  but  they  put  aside  any  suggestions  of  spii-itual 
feeling  which  may  come  to  them  in  their  work  as  dis- 
turbing elements,  as  dimming  the  '  dry  b'ght '  in  which 
they  toil.  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  their  spiritual 
faculty  becomes  dwarfed  or  paralysed,  till,  not  finding 
its  motions  in  themselves,  they  are  ready  to  deny  their 
existence  elsewhere.  On  the  other  hand,  their  peculiar 
nabit  of  mind  becomes  abnormally  developed,  and  even 
their  imagination  is  only  used  in  one  direction.  They  are 
like  men  who  should  sit  all  their  life  in  a  chair  and 
.exercise  their  arms  violently.  Their  arms  become 
immensely  strong,  their  legs  so  feeble  that  they  cannot 
walk.  One  would  not  be  surprised  to  he.ar  these  persons 
say,  ^  On  the  whole,  as  a  body,  we  have  given  up  any 
belief  in  walking  being  either  pleasant  or  intended  for 
the  human  race.'  The  answer  is, '  You  are  no  judge  till 
you  have  recovered  the  use  of  your  legs.' 

Nor  is  one  in  the  least  surprised  by  a  similar  assertion 
on  the  part  of  some  natural  philosophers  with  rcgjird 
to  immortality.  Given  the  previous  habit  of  mind  and 
work,  what  else  but  unbelief  could  ensue  ?  Only  we  can 
scarcely  refrain  a  smile  when  the  assertion  is   made 


196  Immorta  llty. 

with  a  certain  Pharisaic  air,  *  Nature,  I  thank  thee,  I  am 
not  led  away  bj  superstition  or  feeling,  even  as  these 
Christians/  and  the  only  possible  answer  is  a  smile,  such 
as  the  natural  philosopher  would  greet  a  religious  man 
with,  who  had  as  much  neglected  his  intellect  and  its 
exercise  as  the  denier  of  immortality  has  neglected  his 
spirit  and  its  exercise,  and  who  should  say,  as  if  it  settled 
the  whole  question,  '  On  the  whole  we  have  ceased  to 
believe  in  the  truth  of  the  theory  of  gravitation.' 

But  again,  as  there  are  some  who  have  lost  the  use  of 
the  religious  powers  through  neglect  of  them,  so  there 
are  others  in  whom  the  religious  powers  seem  wholly 
wanting.  They  seem  to  be  born  with  a  radical  defect 
in  their  nature,  and  they  can  no  more  see  the  truth  or 
the  necessity  of  immortality  than  some  who  are  colour 
blind  can  see  the  beauty  or  the  use  of  colour.  None 
are  more  upright  than  this  class  of  scientific  men ;  they 
love  truth  and  pursue  after  it  in  physics  without  one 
backward  step.  But  they  cannot  understand  the  things 
of  the  spirit,  for  these  are  naturally  foolishness  to 
them. 

I  can  see  the  use,  almost  the  necessity,  of  this. 
Nature  has  to  be  ruthlessly  examined,  forced  step  by 
step  to  yield  her  secrets.  The  good  of  the  race  demands 
that  a  certain  amount  of  this  work  should  be  done  by 
men  who  are  not  disturbed  by  the  speculations  or  the 
passions  of  the  spirit,  and  though  there  are  many  who 
unite  with  ease  the  realms  of  faith  and  of  experiment 
under  one  government,  yet  there  are  a  few  whose  work 
is  needed  in  physics  and  who  would  do  but  little 
therein  if  they  were  called  on  to  contend  also  in  the 


Immortality,  1 9  7 

• 
world  of  the  spirit.     These,  I  think,  are  so  far  sacrificed 

in  this  life  for  the  good  of  the  whole ;  allowed  to  remain 
imperfect  men  that  they  may  do  their  own  special  work 
in  a  perfect  manner.  And  we  accept  their  work  with 
gratitude,  and  say  to  ourselves  when  we  regret  their 
want,  *  God  has  plenty  of  time  to  finish  the  education 
of  His  labourers ;  that  which  is  deficient  here  will  be 
added  hereafter.'  But  at  the  same  time,  while  we 
recognise  the  excellent  work  of  these  philosophers  in 
their  own  sphere,  we  ask  of  them  not  to  force  upon  us 
the  results  of  their  blindness  in  another  region.  If  a 
man  cannot  see  red,  we  do  not  let  him  impose  on  us 
the  statement  that  red  is  not  to  be  seen,  even  though 
he  may  be  a  perfect  musician.  If  a  man  cannot  conceive 
immortality,  we  do  not  let  him  impose  on  us  the  state- 
ment that  immortality  is  a  vain  dream,  even  though 
he  may  be  a  natural  philosopher  of  the  first  rank.  We 
are  bound  to  say  to  the  one.  As  a  musician  we  accept 
your  criticisms ;  as  a  judge  of  colour  you  are  of  no  value ; 
and  to  the  other.  As  a  natural  philosopher  we  bow  to 
your  conclusions ;  as  a  judge  of  the  truth  or  falsehood 
of  immortality  your  Opinion  is  worthless. 

Again,  in  no  way  is  the  habit  of  mind  of  which  we  are 
speaking,  carried  further  than  in  the  saying  of  some  phy- 
siologists that  all  thought  and  feeling  are  inseparably 
bound  up  with  physical  form,  with  nervous  centres  and 
the  rest; — that  form  makes  mind,  and  therefore  that 
mind,  feeling,  memory,  and  the  desires,  the  pain,  and 
the  joy  of  that  which  we  call  the  spirit,  perish  with 
the  dissolution  of  the  machine  of  which  they  are 
part.     I  have  just  as  good  a  right  to  start  from  the 


igS  Immortality, 

other  side,  and  to  say  that  thought  makes  form ; — nay, 
I  have  even  more  right,  for  by  a  strict  process  of 
reasoning  one  may  fairly  arrive  at  the  statement  that 
our  own  frame  and  the  whole  material  universe  is 
the  product  of  our  own  thought.  I  do  not  say 
that  I  Iznow  this,  nor  assert  that  mind  makes  form, 
but  it  is  just  as  probable  as,  and  even  more  pro- 
bable, than  the  opposite  assertion.  Both  statements 
are  incapable  of  sufficient  proof.  Professor  Huxley 
says  that  '  when  men  begin  to  talk  about  there  being 
nothing  else  in  the  universe  but  matter  and  force  and 
necessary  laws,  he  declines  to  follow  them  ;'  and  equally 
when  men  say  that  there  is  nothing  else  in  the  universe 
but  thought  or  will  or  consciousness,  we  should  decline 
to  follow  them.  The  latter  is  far  more  possible  than 
the  other  ;  I  am  myself  inclined  to  believe  it,  but  I  do 
not  know  it.  All  we  know  with  relation  to  our  body 
and  mind  is,  that  certain  physical  changes  take  place 
simultaneously  with  every  thought  and  feeling.  But  no 
knowledge  of  the  structure  of  the  brain  or  nerves  can 
show  us  the  connecting  link  between  the  two,  or  enable 
us  to  say  that  physical  motion  is*  thought  or  thought 
physical  motion.  '  The  passage  from  the  physics  of  the 
brain,'  says  Dr.  Tyndall,  '  to  the  corresponding  facts  of 
consciousness  is  unthinkable.  Granted  that  a  definite 
thought  and  the  definite  molecular  action  in  the  brain 
occur  simultaneously,  we  do  not  possess  the  intellectual 
organ,  nor  apparently  any  rudiment  of  it,  which  could 
enable  us  to  pass  by  a  process  of  reasoning  from  the  one 
phenomenon  to  the  other.  They  appear  together,  we 
know  not  why.'  There  is  no  proof,  then,  that  consciousness 


Immortality »  1 99 

is  inseparably  connected  with  the  physical  frame,  and 
therefore  no  proof  that  it  perishes  -with  it.  The  truth, 
then,  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality  remains,  considered 
from  the  intellectual  point  of  view,  an  open  question, 
and  to  daringly  assert  that  it  is  untrue  is  ridiculous  in 
the  mouth  of  a  sensible  man. 

I  may  say  here,  in  a  parenthesis,  that  Christianity  by 
no  means  denies  that  thought  and  form  in  man  are 
closely  connected  one  with  the  other.  On  the  contrary, 
the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  seems  to  imply  thattha 
human  consciousness  needs  form  in  order  to  be  conscious 
of  itself,  for  it  allots  a  body  to  the  soul.  It  does  not  say, 
as  some  have  vainly  fiibled,  that  the  body  we  place  in 
the  earth  and  whose  elements  pass  into  the  earth,  is 
raised  again  :  it  does  say  that  God  gives  a  spiritual 
body  to  the  soul,  whatever  that  may  mean.  It  throws 
the  matter  on  the  omnipotence  of  God,  find  if  we  believe 
in  God  at  all,  that  a  new  form  should  kijit  itself  to  a 
mind  and  spu'it  which  have  become  personal  through 
the  memories  and  work  of  a  human  life  is  no  more 
incredible  than  that  they  should  have  been  originally 
knit  together. 

Moreover,  should  it  tiurn  out  to  be  true  that  there  is 
nothing  actually  existing  but  thought,  and  that  our 
present  bodies  are  only  the  product  of  our  power  of 
presenting  to  ourselves  our  own  conceptions — then, 
supposing  that  our  personal  order  of  thought  continues 
after  that  which  we  call  death,  it  will  weave  out  of  its* 
consciousness,  under  changed  conditions,  a  new  vehicle 
for  itself,  and  for  ever  appear  to  itself  and  others  to  be 
connected  with  form. 


200  Immortality. 

But  to  return  to  our  argument.  The  natural  philo- 
sopher who  may  allow  the  possibility  of  immortality 
will  at  the  same  time  refuse  to  consider  it  as  a  practical 
question,  because,  before  any  intellectual  proof  can 
be  given  of  it,  a  spiritual  world  must  be  assumed,  and 
he  refuses  to  believe  without  proof  in  the  existence  of 
such  a  world.  He  takes  nothing  for  granted,  he  will 
have  faith  in  nothing  which  cannot  be  proved  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  understanding. 

Now,  I  want  to  try  and  give  some  reply  to  this.  I 
will  not  assume,  as  will  be  seen,  a  spiritual  world.  I 
will  only  begin  with  the  assumption  of  the  reality  of 
a  command,  outside  of  our  thought,  which  bids  us  do 
what  is  right,  and  supposes  that  we  know  what  is  right. 
But,  even  this  is  an  act  of  faith,  and  to  that  our  natural 
philosopher  objects  in  any  shape. 

Well,  it  seems  to  me  that  precisely  the  same  diffi- 
culty which  he  alleges  against  the  consideration  of 
immortality  may  be  alleged  against  himself.  He  too 
must  begin  with  an  act  of  faith,  and  without  that  be- 
ginning he  can  know  nothing  at  all  about  the  phy- 
sical world.  That  he  does  know  something  about  it 
is  plain.  How  did  he  win  that  knowledge  ?  He  would 
say,  by  deductive  and  inductive  reasoning,  accompanied 
by  experiment.  I  do  not  contradict  him,  but  I  say  that 
he  has  left  out  one  of  the  factors  of  the  answer,  and  a 
very  important  one :  he  has  left  out  the  act  of  faith 
with  which  he  started.  He  willed,  by  an  impulse  within 
himself,  for  which  his  educated  reason  can  give  no  proof, 
to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  physical  world.  And  with- 
out that  act  of  faith  he  could,  by  any  and  every  process 


Immortality.  201 

of  reasoning,  have  only  arrived  at  the  knowledge  that  he 
knew  nothing  at  all.  It  is  not  difficult  to  make  this 
clear.  By  the  creation  of  theories  which  he  afterwards 
proved  true  through  their  explanation  of  all  the  pheno- 
mena within  their  several  spheres,  by  long  experimental 
arguments  conducted  from  fact  to  fact,  he  at  last  ^,rrived, 
step  after  step,  at  the  conception  of  one  thing  outside 
himself  by  w^hich  all  things  are,  and  of  which  all  things 
are  forms,  and  he  calls  this.  Force — the  constant  force 
of  the  universe.  And  having  thus  reduced  all  things 
to  one  expression,  he  may  think  that  he  knows  all 
things,  or  is  in  the  sure  way  of  knowing  them.  I  do 
not  say  that  he  is  not ;  but  I  do  say  that  he  assumes 
without  proof,  and  by  faith,,  that  there  is  this  thing 
outside  of  his  thought — this  Force,  which  is  the  phy- 
sical universe.  For,  without  assuming  that,  what  hap- 
pens as  he  goes  on  thinking  ?  He  will  go  back  and  say 
to  himself,  '  Just  as  I  questioned  whether  red  or  blue 
had  any  real  existence,  and  found  that  they  had  none, 
being  only  the  result  produced  in  my  brain  by  sensations 
caused  in  the  eye  by  waves  of  light  of  different  lengths — 
and  just  as  when  I  asked  myself  whether  light  had  any 
real  existence  as  light,  and  found  on  enquiry  that  it  was 
only  a  mode  of  motion,  a  form  of  force,  which  was  light 
to  me  because  my  eye  had  certain  atomic  arrangements, 
but  which  might  be  electricity  to  me,  if  the  atoms 
of  my  eye  were  differently  arranged — so  now  I  ask 
whether  force  itself  has  any  real  existence  apart  from 
my  thought  of  it,  and  therefore  whether  there  be  a 
physical  universe  at  all.  And,  led  by  reasoning  alone, 
I  am  forced  to  say  that  it  has  not,  that  there  is  nothing 


202  Immortality. 

whicli  I  liave  not  first  thought,  that  I  can  have  no 
thought  without  having  first  thought  it.  By  reasoning 
alone,  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  whole  physical 
universe  is  but  a  picture  which  my  own  thought 
presents  to  itself,  and  therefore  that  I  know  nothing 
about  it  as  it  really  is,  if  it  is — for  even  with  regard  to 
my  own  thought  I  cannot  say  whether  I  really  think 
or  only  think  that  I  think.  I  have  reached  a  point  at 
which  all  certainty  disappears.  I  only  know  that  I 
know  nothing.' 

But  when  we  have  arrived  at  this  point,  and  absolutely 
discredited  all  existence,  even  our  own — for  the  argu- 
ment may  be  pushed  to  that — the  absurdity  of  the  con- 
clusion tells  us  that  there  is  something  wrong  in  our 
method  of  reasoning,  that  some  factor  has  been  left  out. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  we  know  nothing,  and  the 
understanding,  working  alone,  brings  us  to  that.  But 
one  man  will  say,  '  The  fact  is,  that  I  do  know  something 
about  the  world  of  nature.'  ^  Well,'  I  reply,  '  look  back 
and  you  wiU  find  that  you  either  began  with  an  act  of 
faith  in  the  reality  of  the  physical  universe,  or  that  you 
put  in  that  act  of  faith  in  the  course  of  your  argu- 
ment.' To  another,  who  allows  that  his  reasoning  has 
led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  he  can  say  nothing  cer- 
tain about  physical  existence,  we  reply,  '  No,  you  never 
can  know,  till  you  have  resolved  to  add  the  factor  of 
faith  in  an  outward  world  to  your  argument.' 

We  must  begin  our  reasoning  by  an  act  of  faith  in 
the  existence  of  a  physical  world,  real  at  least  to  usy 
practically  independent  of  us;  and  it  is  this  act  of 
faith  which  gives  consistence  to  the  whole  fabric  of  our 


Immortality,  *  203 

physical  knowledge,  makes  it  useful,  keeps  up  our  work, 
and  saves  us  from  yielding  to  the  conclusion  to  which  we 
are  ^iven  by  the  work  of  the  reasoning  faculty  alone. 
It  is  the  foundation-stone  on  which  the  whole  of  natural 
science  is  built. 

An  unknown  impulse  in  our  constitution,'  the  origin 
of  which  we  cannot  trace,  determines  our  will — in  spite 
of  our  educated  reason — to  believe  in  a  physical  world. 
And  that  is  as  much  and  as  absolute  an  act  of  faith  as 
that  whereby  we  believe  in  God  or  in  the  reality  of 
duty,  two  things  which  are  one,  and  which  together 
infer  immortality.  When  the  man  of  science,  then, 
says  to  me,  '  I  refuse  to  consider  immortality,  it  sets 
out  with  an  act  of  faith,'  I  reply,  *  You  might  as  well 
refuse  to  consider  the  physical  motions  of  the  universe, 
for  to  do  so  demands  that  you  should  first  believe  in  a 
physical  universe,  a  belief  for  which  you  can  give  no 
proof  at  all,  till  you  have  believed  it.' 

And  now  to  apply  this  to  the  matter  in.  hand — to  the 
question  of  the  proof  of  immortality.  Taking  the 
understanding  alone  as  our  guide,  and  believing 
nothing  which  cannot  be  made  plain  to  reasoning,  we 
arrive  in  the  spiritual  region  at  a  conclusion  similar  to 
that  which  we  found  in  the  region  of  physics — at  a 
knowledge  only  that  we  know  nothing  of  duty,  immor- 
tality, or  God.  We  ask  and  ask  again,  and  the  more 
we  ask  the  more  sceptical  we  become.  This  or  that 
may  be  or  may  not  be  i  I  know  nothing  at  all.  And 
this  is  misery  to  an  earnest  man. 

But  as  we  find  that  the  natural  philosopher  begins 
by  willing  to  believe  that  there  is  a  physical  world 


204  ^Immortality. 

to  him,  so  now  in  this  other  region  we  ask  ourselves 
whether  there  is  nothing  in  us  which  claims  our  faith, 
and  for  which  we  can  bring  no  proof.  Is  there  any- 
thing in  oui*  consciousness  which  is  independent-of  our 
thought?  And  as  we  listen  we  hear  a  voice  which 
says,  '  You  were  not  born  only  to  know,  but  far  more  to 
act ;  and  not  to  know  and  through  knowledge  to  act, 
but  to  act  and  through  action  to  know.'  We  have  an 
impulse  to  moral  activity  which  we  feel  is  one  with  our 
existence,  and  this  impulse  seems  to  be  originally 
beyond  all  knowledge,  to  transcend  the  realm  of  the 
understanding,  to  be,  not  anything  we  think,  but 
the  ground  of  all  our  thinking.  And  we  seem  to  know 
immediately  and  without  any  proof — by  a  different  kind 
of  knowledge,  therefore,  than  that  which  we  gain  from 
reasoning — that  we  must  obey  this  impulse  or  fall  into 
nothingness.  If  we  take  up  our  old  habit  and  submit 
this  inner  voice  to  the  questions  of  the  understanding, 
we  are  forced  to  ask  if  we  really  feel  this  impulse  or 
only  think  we  feel  it,  and  speculation  suggests  that  the 
impulse  may  be  only  the  thought  of  a  thought  which 
our  consciousness  presents  to  us,  and  that  if  we  act 
upon  it  we  cannot  know  whether  we  really  act  or  only 
seem  to  ourselves  to  act.  Tenfold  darkness  of  doubt 
surrounds  us  then,  and  our  life  becomes  like  a  dream 
within  a  dream.  Therefore,  in  despair,  we  make  a 
bold  step,  and  casting  away  those  enquiries  which  led  us 
to  the  abyss  of  nothingness,  we  resolve  with  all  our 
will  to  believe  that  this  impulse  to  moral  action  is  abso- 
lutely a  real  impulse  and  to  obey  it  as  the  true  calling 
of  our  life.     We  set  aside  the  understanding  at  this 


Immortality,  205 

point,  and  we  call  faith  to  our  side.  Immediately,  we 
know  not  how,  we  are  convinced  that  right  is  a  reality, 
and  that  we  can  do  what  is  right  and  that  we  shall  find 
our  true  and  only  life  in  doing  it.  We  are  convinced 
of  this  through  faith,  and  our  faith  arises  not  from  a 
series  of  proofs  offered  by  the  understanding,  but  from 
our  having  freely  willed  to  believe  in  duty,  that  is,  from 
the  whole  set  of  our  inward  character. 

And  now,  having  by  faith  found  this  clear  starting- 
point,  that  we  are  bound  to  act  according  to  conscience, 
what  follows  ?  The  same  voice  which  tells  us  that  we 
must  act  rightly,  tells  us  also,  and  that  necessarily, 
that  our  actions  will  have  a  result  in  the  future,  and 
as  our  will  and  action  are  conceived  of  as  right,  the 
conception  at  once  arises  of  a  better  world  in  which  our 
will  and  acts  shall  have  their  due  value.  We  neces- 
sarily look  forward  to  and  live  in  a  nobler  world. 
Where  is,  then,  this  nobler  world  ?  The  religious  in- 
fidel may  accept  so  far  our  argument,  but  he  will 
say  that  this  world  to  which  we  look  forward  is  to  be 
found  not  in  any  spiritual  world  but  in  a  future  human 
world,  when  man  has  subdued  the  forces  of  the  uni- 
verse so  that  they  spoil  his  work  no  longer,  when  he 
has,  by  the  long  effort  of  those  who  have  been  faithful 
to  the  cause  of  freedom  and  right,  produced  a  perfect 
state  in  which  each  shall  love  his  neighbour,  and  each 
nation  love  its  neighbour  nation,  as  himself.  This  is 
the  nobler  world  to  which  our  actions  and  will  aspire, 
and  in  it  are  their  results.  Neither  immortality  nor 
a  spiritual  world  need  here  be  inferred  from  the  argu- 
ment. 


2o6  Immortality, 

But,  granting  that  mankind  will  reacli  this  perfect 
state,  what  is  to  happen  then  ?  There  will  be  nothing 
more  to  do,  nothing  to  aspire  to  left,  nothing  more  to 
know.  Will  action  then,  and  aspiration  die,  and 
curiosity  fail  for  food  ?  If  so,  men  will  cease  to  be  men, 
mankind  will  stagnate  in  its  place,-  or  will  weep  itself 
to  death,  for  it  will  have  no  more  worlds  to  conquer. 
Such  is  the  necessary  result  of  this  theory  without  the 
addition  of  immortal  life — and  to  this  miserable  end 
we  can  quietly  look  forward,  for  this  we  can  work  with 
energy  and  patience !  When  we  have  made  the  race 
perfect,  we  have  most  utterly  ruined  the  race.  It  seems 
an  intolerable  conclusion  and  an  absurd  one,  and  there 
is  no  way  out  of  it  but  either  the  supposition  of  the 
annihilation  of  mankind  which  renders  our  will  to 
do  right  and  the  effects  we  inevitably  annex  to  it  ridi- 
culous in  our  eyes ;  or  the  supposition  that  there  is 
another  world  where  the  race  goes  on  under  new  condi- 
tions, to  do  new  work  and  win  new  knowledge,  where 
the  will  to  do  right  has  its  highest  and  most  sure 
results. 

Moreover,  our  righteous  will  has  but  few  results  in 
this  world.  There  are  a  thousand  thoughts  which 
it  determines,  a  thousand  feelings  it  impels,  which 
never  pass  beyond  our  inner  life.  The  steady  volition 
towards  good  of  a  long  life  has  little  result  on  this 
earth.  Many  of  the  good  things  we  succeed  in  putting 
into  action  miserably  fail  for  want  of  prudence,  or  even 
produce  evil  in  this  world.  Where,  then,  are  the  results 
of  these  things  P  where  does  the  will  act  ?  where  are 
the  broken  lines,  the  inner  life,  completed  ?    If  nowhere, 


Immortality,  207 

and  plainly  it  is  not  here,  then  half  of  our  being  is 
made  up  of  broken  ends  of  thread. 

Wo  are  driven  therefore  to  think  that  the  nobler 
world  in  which  all  good  action  has  its  own  good  results, 
in  which  our  will  (determined  towards  right)  serves 
always  a  noble  purpose,  is  another  and  a  higher  world 
than  this,  of  which  we  and  all  our  brother-men  are 
citizens.  In  this  world  our  will  has  power  when  we 
will  to  do  right;  it  sets  on  foot  endless  results.  In^ 
this  world,  which  must  be  spiritual,  because  o\a  will  is  • 
spiritual,  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  now,  as 
really,  nay  more  really,  than  we  live  and  move  in  the 
physical  world  by  our  outward  acts,  and  when  we  die 
we  do  not  enter  a  world  of  which  we  have  had  no 
experience,  but  in  a  more  complete  manner,  as  free 
from  earthly  limitations,  into  a  world  in  which  we  have 
lived  already. 

We  are  forced,  then,  by  feeling  that  our  virtuous 
wiU  must  have  results,  and  by  the  fact  that  it  has  only 
a  small  number  of  results  in  this  world,  to  believe  in  a 
spiritual  world  in  which  the  will,  being  itself  spiritual, 
linds  its  true  ends  fulfilled.  That  is  the  first  step  in 
the  argument  for  immortality,  after  the  act  of  faith  of 
which  I  spoke  has  been  freely  chosen  by  the  wiU. 

The  second  step  carries  us  on  to  the  truth  of  Im- 
mortality. 

When  I  conceive  of  my  wiU  to  do  right  having 
necessary  results  in  a  spiritual  world,  I  conceive  of  a 
law  as  ruling  in  that  world.  If  the  results  must  he, 
there  must  be  a  law  by  which  they  are  necessary.  To 
that  law  I   am   connected   by  moral   obedience,   and 


2o8  Immortality. 

because  it  annexes  fixed  results  to  virtuous  volition  in 
me  and  in  all  men,  it  is  above  and  beyond  our  wills. 
In  it  all  our  finite  wills  are  held,  and  to  it  they  all  are 
subject.  But  since  the  world  in  which  this  law  is,  is 
not  the  world  of  sense,  but  a  spiritual  world  in  which 
will  acts,  the  law  of  that  world  cannot  be  like  that 
which  we  call  a  law  here,  a  mere  expression  of  antece- 
dents and  sequences,  a  mere  statement  of  the  way  in 
which  things  are ;  it  must  be  a  living  law ;  it  must  be 
self-active  reason ;  it  must  be  a  will. 

And  it  is  a  Will — the  Will  from  whom  all  human 
wills  have  flowed,  to  which  all  human  wills  are  related, 
in  whom  all  human  wills  have  being ;  the  only  self- 
existent,  the  only  unchangeable,  the  only  infinite  Will, 
of  whom  and  by  whom  and  through  whom  are  all  things 
— God  invisible,  eternal,  absolute,  to  whom  be  glory  for 
ever  and  ever.  The  voice  I  hear  in  my  heart,  and  to 
which  I  willed  to  give  obedience,  and  whose  reality  I 
believed  at  first,  I  know  now  was  His  voice.  My  will, 
which  determined  to  obey  that  voice,  was  urged  thereto 
by  this  infinite  Will.  My  will  is  related  to  Him,  and  in 
Him  must  have  results  in  the  whole  spiritual  world 
which  exists  in  Him  and  by  Him.  And  this  which  is 
true  of  me  is  true  of  all  my  fellow-men.  As  the  will  of 
each  is  contained  and  sustained  by  Him,  and  has  its 
own  special  results  in  Him,  He  becomes  the  spiritual 
bond  of  union  which  unites  me  to  all  the  race ;  we 
all  together  share  our  life  in  Him.  And  because  we 
share  in  His  Being  and  He  is  eternal  and  imperishable, 
we  also  know,  at  last,  that  we  are  eternal  and  imperish- 
able— and  that,  for  the  certainty  of  which  our  soul  has 


Immortality,  209 

longed  and  cried,  is  a  reality.  We  are  immortal. 
Death,  as  we  call  it,  may  touch  our  sensible  vesture,  but 
it  Ls  only  a  vesture  which  decays.  Our  being  goes  on  in 
another  life,  for  we  live  in  His  Life,  and  our  true  world 
is  not  this  world.  'We  look  for  a  city  which  hath 
foundations.'  We  abide  in  Him  and  He  in  us,  and  He 
abides  for  ever. 

The  parallel,  in  fact,  between  the  two  lines  of  argu- 
ment, is  exact.  The  natural  philosopher  having  put  in, 
either  at  the  beginning,  or  in  the  process  of  his  work, 
a  belief  in  the  existence  of  Force,  which  is  a  belief  in 
an  outward  world,  finds  that  which  he  was  driven  to 
assume  confirmed  at  every  step  of  his  enquiry.  He 
cannot  understand  a  number  of  facts  except  on  the 
ground  that  Force  is  a  reality  to  him,  and  he  leaves 
aside,  as  unpractical  in  his  work,  the  question  as  to 
whether  it  has  only  an  existence  in  Thought.  His 
theory  of  Force  explains  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
natural  phenomena,  and  is  contradicted  by  none.  He 
returns  then  to  his  starting-point,  and  says,  *  That  which 
I  originally  believed  without  proof,  is  true.  Force  is 
a  real  existence.' 

Precisely  in  the  same  way  we  prove  that  the  reality 
of  Duty,  which  we  willed  to  believe — and  which,  seen 
as  we  saw  it,  (not  as  something  developed  by  the  slow 
action  of  social  circumstances,  but  as  a  command  inde- 
pendent of  our  own  thought  and  coming  to  us  from 
without,)  necessarily  inferred  a  spiritual  world,  and  God, 
and  Immortality — is  an  absolute  reality.  It  and  its 
necessary  results,  which  together  form  our  theory  of  the 
Universe  of  Spirit,  solve  the  greater  part  of  the  moral 

10 


2 1  o  Immortality, 

and  spiritual  problems  of  life,  and  are  not  distinctly 
contradicted  by  any. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  the  analogy  is  not  exact. 
For  tbougb  Force  or  the  physical  -vvorld  is  proved  to 
have  a  real  existence  to  us^  it  is  not  proved  to  have  an 
independent  existence,  and  some  scientific  men  are  in 
doubt  on  that  question.  All  Force,  they  say,  may 
be  nothing  more  than  Will — Will-Force.  Moreover, 
though  the  supposition  of  its  existence  explains  most  of 
the  phenomena  we  know,  that  does  not  necessarily  infer 
that  it  has  any  existence  independent  of  Thought.  We 
have  no  right,  then,  an  objector  may  say,  to  infer,  be- 
cause our  theory  of  the  universe  of  Spirit  explains  the 
moral  and  spiritual  phenomena  of  human  life  and  its 
history,  the  actual  existence  of  Duty,  of  a  spiritual 
world,  of  God,  and  of  Immortality.  We  can  only  infer 
their  existence  in  Thought. 

Only  their  existence  in  Thought !  In  what  else  should 
they  exist,  and  what  existence  can  be  more  absolute  ? 
We  ask  no  more.  For  taking  the  ground  of  those 
scientific  men  who  think  that  Force  is  Will,  they  think 
no  more  than  we  wish  them  to  think,  that  there  is  a 
Will,  and  therefore  a  Thought,  in  whom  the  Universe  is. 
In  thinking  thus,  they  grant  God,  and  the  real  existence 
of  all  things  in  Him.  In  thinking  thus,  the  physical 
world  is  no  less  a  reality  to  them,  but  more.  The 
question  whether  it  have  independent  existence  or  not 
does  not  touch  their  work,  nor  will  their  work  on  that 
account  be  of  less  moment  for  ever  and  ever,  for  the 
principles  of  the  order  of  this  apparent  world  will  be 
always  the  same  in  any  other  apparent  world,  however 


Immortality,  211 

different  from  this,  for  they  are  fixed  in  God's  Thought. 
We  have  a  right,  then,  to  say  that  the  analogy  fits 
accurately. 

We  assume,  then,  a  spiritual  world,  or  ratter  we  assume 
the  reality  of  Duty,  from  which  we  necessarily  infer, 
as  I  said,  a  spiritual  world ;  and  when  we  find  that  the 
phenomena  of  the  human  conscience  and  spirit  can  be 
explained  on  that  assumption,  we  return  to  our  starting- 
point  and  say,  '  That  which  we  believed  without  proof, 
is  true.  There  is  an  imperative  beyond  our  thought 
and  independent  of  our  consciousness  which  we  are 
bound  to  obey.  The  moment  we  will  to  obey  it,  we  are 
conscious  that  it  must  have  results,  and,  on  further 
thought,  that  these  results  can  only  be  fully  realised 
in  a  world  in  which  Will  and  Thought  alone  exist,  and 
therefore  in  a  spiritual,  not  a  material  world.  And 
granting  these  things,  our  will  to  do  right,  and  a  world 
in  which  Will  and  Thought  alone  exist,  we  are  forced 
to  infer  One  whose  Will  is  absolutely  good,  and  who 
contains  in  His  Will  our  will,  and  in  His  self-active 
Reason  and  Will,  which  are  His  personality,  our  person- 
ality ;  One  therefore  who  is  Eternal  Life,  and  the  life 
of  all,  the  only  pure  Being,  in  whom  all  Being  is.  And 
lastly,  we  are  driven  with  joy  to  feel  and  know,  that  if 
Duty,  and  a  spiritual  world,  and  God,  be  truths. 
Immortality  must  also  be  a  Truth.  If  we  are  insepa- 
rably connected  with  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Will,  we 
must  ourselves  be,  as  derived  from  Him,  infinite  and 
eternal. 

And  now,  with  this  knowledge  in  our  hand,  we  turn 
to  our  life,  and  find  it  falling  into  perfect  order.     Wo 


212  Immortality. 

know  Tvlience  we  liave  come  and  whither  we  are  going. 
We  know  the  end  of  all  our  brother-men  and  the 
necessary  end  of  all  this  struggle  of  Man.  Problem 
after  problein  is  sotved  —  difficulty  after  difficulty 
vanishes  away ;  and  if  some  things  remain  obscure,  we 
know  that  we  have  but  to  wait,  and  our  key  will  unlock 
them,  when  we  are  able  to  bear  the  revelation.  Peace 
enters  our  heart,  the  peace  which  comes  of  certain 
knowledge.  We  know  and  rest  in  the  infinite  meaning 
of  the  Saviour's  saying :  '  God  is  not  a  God  of  the 
dead,  but  of  the  living :  for  all  live  unto  him.' 


Immortality,  213 


IMMORTALITY. 

*  For  he  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  hut  of  the  living :  for  all  live  unto 
him.' — Luke  xx.  38. 

No  ONE  can  help  feeling,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  a 
forecasting  of  decay.  The  melancholy  skies,  the  naked 
trees,  the  heavy  smell  of  rotting  leaves,  the  hateful 
atmosphere,  tell  their  own  story.  And  influenced  as 
we  are  through  blood  and  bone  by  the  elements  which 
surround  us,  and  by  the  memories  of  brighter  weather, 
the  spring  of  life  relaxes,  and  our  thoughts  take  the 
colour  of  decay. 

As  it  is  year  after  year,  is  it  so  for  man  after  man  ? 
Time  goes  on,  but  past  years  do  not  live  again.  The 
flower-life  goes  on,  but  not  the  same  flowers.  And 
does  mankind  go  on,  but  not  men  ?  Have  we  each  our 
spring,  our  summer,  our  rich  and  swiftly  miserable 
autumn,  our  winter  of  death,  and  never  another  spring? 
This  is  the  thought  of  many  at  this  time.  The  race 
continues,  but  the  individual  perishes.  Death  is  per- 
sonal annihilation. 

Last  Sunday  we  gave  some  reasons  for  the  prevalence 
of  this  thought  among  natural  philosophers ;  to-day  we 
begin  by  giving  some  reasons  for  its  prevalence  in 
other  classes  of  society,  and  pass  on  to  consider  the 


214  Immortality. 

reasonableness  or  not  of  anniliilation :  meaning  by 
annihilation  not,  of  course,  the  destruction  of  the  ele- 
ments of  which  our  body  is  composed,  but  the  resolu- 
tion into  those  elements  of  all  that  we  call  thought, 
feeling,  will,  and  self-consciousness. 

The  reasons  of  the  prevalence  of  this*  opinion  vary 
with  different  types  of  men  and  their  different  lives. 
It  arises  in  some  from  the  intensity  of  youthful  ardour, 
when  it  has  been  overstrained.  They  have  been  so  full 
of  life  that  they  have  drawn  upon  it  too  much,  and 
drained  the  source  dry.  Weary,  exhausted,  yet  still 
desirous  to  find  the  old  enjoyment,  they  are  tossed 
between  desire  and  weakness  to  fulfil  desire,  till  at  last 
the  only  comfort  seems  to  be  to  look  forward  to  an 
eternal  sleep.  '  Why  should  the  vital  torment  of  life 
be  renewed  ?  '  they  ask,  forgetting  that  it  is  torment 
because  life  has  been  misused,  not  knowing  that  life  is 
vital  joy  T^hen  it  is  used  with  temperance. 

It  arises  in  others,  and  these  chiefly  business  men, 
from  the  disease  of  unceasing  work.  One  of  the  things 
which  is  acting  worst  on  English  society  is  that  a 
number  of  men  have  got  into  that  state  in  which 
recreation  is  impossible.  All  the  year  round,  from 
morning  to  night,  they  pursue  their  trade  or  their 
profession  without  a  single  break,  except  their  heavy 
after-dinner  sleep.  Even  in  dreams  they  hunt  their 
work,  like  dogs.  This  is  also  a  misuse  of  life.  All  joy 
is  taken  out  of  it,  beauty  has  no  place  in  its  foggy 
realm;  even  love  resolves  itself  into  a  dull  desire  to 
provide  for  one's  children.  The  world  is  not  their 
oyster  which  they  open,  they  are  the  oysters  of  the 


Immortality,  2 1 5 

world.  And  when  they  are  deaf  and  blind  to  all  the 
loveliness  and  passion  and  movement  of  life,  what 
wonder  if,  having  become  machines,  they  do  not  care 
to  run  on  for  ever  ? 

It  arises  in  the  case  of  a  number  of  cultivated  young 
men  from  the  depression  of  failure.  Within  the  last 
ten  years  there  has  been  in  the  universities  an 
atmosphere,  almost  tropical,  of  refined  culture  and 
scholarship,  and  in  it  a  number  of  intellects  and 
imaginations  have  'been  forced,  till  they  are,  for  the 
most  part,  unfitted  to  do  the  rough  work  of  the  world. 
Educated,  then,  up  to  the  point  at  which  they  fully 
comprehend  and  passionately  feel  the  great  things 
which  men  possessing  genius  have  done,  it  seems  to 
them,  by  a  very  common  instinct,  that  they  can  either 
do  the  same  or  at  least  that  they  have  a  right  to  try. 
Hence  we  have  the  deluge  of  second  and  third-rate 
painters,  poets,  novelists,  critics,  and  the  rest,  with 
which  England  is  now  overspread.  They  begin  with 
hope  and  joy,  and  after  a  little  deserved  applause  for 
the  passinf;  pleasure  they  have  given,  mankind,  whose 
judgment  soon  gets  right,  drops  them,  and  they  feel 
with  bitterness  that  though  they  have  won  something, 
it  is  not  their  ideal,  and  moreover,  that  they  can  ne^er 
reach  their  ideal.  The  applause  does  not  deceive 
them,  they  are  too  well  educated  not  to  see,  when  the 
first  excitement  of  production  is  over  and  they  look  at 
the  work  to  which  they  have  given  their  best  powers, 
that  they  have  failed.  Disgust  of  li/e  ensues,  a  kind  of 
passionate  hatred  of  themselves.  In  that  atmosphere 
no  good  work  can  be  done,  and  if  they  try  again  the 


2 1 6  Immorta  lity, 

inspiration  wHcli  they  had  abandons  them- — it  was 
founded  on  ignorance  of  the  extent  of  their  powers, 
knowledge  has  dispersed  it :  the  failure  is  worse  than 
before.  But  all  this  sort  of  work  has  unfitted  them  for 
ruder  and  more  practical  work.  After  riding  on 
Pegasus  they  cannot  get  into  the  traces  and  pull  at  the 
common  chariot  of  the  work  of  the  world.  They  cease 
to  act,  they  bury  themselves  in  their  learned  and 
artistic  leisure,  and  all  vivid  life  is  over.  The  bitter- 
ness of  failure  leads  them  to  utter  carelessness  of  a  life 
to  come.  Why  should  they  renew  the  web  which  will 
crack  from  side  to  side  again? — and  the  inaction  in 
which  they  live  takes  away  the  desire  to  live  again,  for 
it  takes  away  the  food  of  life. 

Moreover,  among  persons  of  this  educated  type  the 
same  thing  holds  good,  as  in  the  case  of  the  scientific 
man  who  pursues  nothing  else  but  science.  Devotion 
to  art  or  to  criticism  alone,  developes  the  faculties  used 
to  a  strength  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  rest.  E'ot 
only  are  the  spiritual  powers  dwindled  to  a  thread  for 
want  of  use,  so  that  immortal  life  is  a  pretty  dream,  but 
the  faculties  used,  being  unbalanced  by  other  important 
powers  of  our  nature,  are  not  capable  of  forming  a  just 
judgment.  Criticism,  in  di-scussing  matters  such  as  the 
evidence  for  immortality^,  discusses  it  as  ifc  would  the 
evidence  for  the  existence  of  an  early  and  unimportant 
myth.  It  begins  by  supposing  it  is  not  true  ;  it  leaves 
out  all  the  spiritual  phenomena  which,  in  the  history  of 
the  human  heart,  haje  accompanied  faith  in  it ;  it  treats 
a  question  which  belongs,  by  the  hypothesis,  to  the 
realm  of  intellect  and  the  spirit,  as  if  it  were  a  question 


Immortaliiy,  2 1 7 

of  the  pure  intellect  alone.  On  the  face  of  it,  nothing 
can  be  more  absurd — as  absurd  as  the  late  discussion  into 
■which  one  of  our  philosophers  enters,  with  regard  to  a 
mother's  love  for  a  child,  on  physiological  grounds  alone. 
It  is  plain  in  this  case  that  the  critical  powers  have 
become  so  abnormally  developed  as  to  vitiate  the  purity 
of  judgment. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  mere  cesthetic  life  tends  equally 
to  a  belief  in  annihilation.  A  somewhat  stern  and 
energetic  manliness  is  needed  in  the  character  of  a 
highly  educated  man  before  he  can  look  forward  with 
joy  to  living  for  ever.  Increase  of  knowledge  and 
increased  sensitiveness  of  feeling  increase  the  pain  of 
living,  and  though  they  also  increase  its  joy,  yet  we 
begin  to  fear  joy,  for  we  know  the  reaction  which 
follows  it.  '  Can  we  bear,'  we  ask,  '  going  on  with  this 
struggle  for  ever  ? '  Yes,  we  can,  but  only  when  we  are 
possessed  by  the  noblest  and  the  strongest  ideas,  when 
we  enter  into  the  struggle  as  men  who  are  resolved  not 
to  retreat  a  single  step.  Slowly,  then,  as  we  grow 
through  long  battle  into  veteran  warriors,  we  feel, 
not  the  languid  pleasure  in  beauty,  but  the  glorious 
joy  of  the  war  for  right :  and  to  live  for  ever  becomes 
the  first  desire  of  life,  for  we  know  that  it  means  life 
in  union  with  eternal  Goodness,  Truth,  and  Love. 

This  sort  of  manliness  the  exclusively  aesthetic  life 
does  not  cherish  but  enfeebles.  It  produces  a  soft, 
rather  mournful,  habit  of  mind :  it  unnerves  the  more 
active  powers,  it  makes  men  shrink  from  the  clash  of 
life;  its  devotion  to  beauty,  for  beauty's  sake  alone, 
blurs  the  sharpness  of  the  lines  which  divide  right  and 


2 1 8  Immortality. 

wrong  :  everything  which  charms  the  senses,  provided 
the  charm  be  a  delicate  one,  is  lovely,  and  whether  it  is 
morally  lovely  or  not  is  a  secondary  consideration. 
Pain,  therefore,  disease,  strong  effort,  the  struggle  of 
doubt,  the  labour  to  find  answers  to  great  problems, 
such  as  this  of  immortality,  become  bitter  and  distress- 
ful ;  and  in  absolute  seeking  after  and  finding  of  the 
beautiful  here,  in  exquisite  enjoyment  of  it  when  found, 
and  in  exquisite  regret  of  it  when  it  can  be  no  more 
enjoyed,  all  hope,  nay,  all  possibility  of  enjoying 
another  life  than  the  present,  passes  away,  and  life 
becomes  in  youth  a  passionate  desire  to  get  all  the 
joy  and  beauty  possible  before  old  age  comes,  and  in 
old  age  a  wailing  memory  of  past  delight,  and  a 
sorrowful  waiting  in  as  much  quiet  as  possible  for  the 
everlasting  sleep.  'Why  enter  another  world?  No. 
other  world  can  be  lovelier  that  this  ;  and  if  I  may  not 
have  this,  I  do  not  care  for  another.' 

The  reasons  why  many  working-men  reject  immor- 
tality I  have  spoken  of  elsewhere,  but  there  is  one  rea- 
son common  to  them  and  to  many  educated  men.  It  is 
that  we  are  living  in  a  revolutionary  period  of  thought, 
and  the  very  fact  that  any  opinion  is  an  old  one  is  enough 
to  subject  it  to  attack.  ]S"ow,  in  the  general  revolt  against 
things  accredited  by  custom,  not  only  is  the  orthodox 
faith  involved,  but  also  beliefs  which,  though  included  in 
Christianity,  are  older  than  it.  Among  these  is  the  belief 
in  immortality.  We  are  doubting  now  the  doctrine  that 
the  ancient  Persian,  Hindoo,  and  Hebrew  clung  to,  that 
Cicero  and  Plato  rejoiced  in  holding,  that  the  Maho- 
metan does  not  dream  of  denying.     It  seems  as  if  on 


Immortality.  2 1 9 

this  subject  the  whole  "world  were  going  back  into  the 
old  savage,  or  into  even  a  less  noble  condition,  for  I 
suppose  no  man  in  hours  of  sober  judgment  has  any 
doubt  as  to  the  nobleness  of  the  idea  of  immortality, 
and  the  degradation  involved  in  the  idea  of  annihi- 
lation. But  the  truth  is  that  a  vast  deal  <5f  the  denial 
of  the  former  among  the  working-classes  and  among 
the  young  men  and  women  of  the  upper  classes  is  not 
owing  to  any  thought  being  expended  on  the  subject, 
but  simply  to  the  revolutionary  impulse  in  them.  *  The 
thing  is  old,  let  us  get  rid  of  it.  The  conservative 
feeling  supports  it;  everything  which  conservatism 
supports  we  attack  :  let  us  have  something  new.'  And 
it  is  not  unamusing — if  we  put  the  religious  feeling 
about  it  aside — to  watch  the  self-conscious  audacity 
with  which  people  try  to  awake  one's  astonishment,  and 
really  awake  one's  pity,  by  airing  in  society  their  faith 
in  annihilation,  as  if  to  believe  in  it  were  not  intel- 
lectually and  morally  a  miserable  business. 

One  would  despair  of  the  progress  of  mankind  if  one 
thought  that  this  would  last.  But  revolutionary  periods 
end  by  finding  a  new  channel  for  their  waters,  and 
though  the  exhausted  ideas  of  the  past  perish  in  the 
whirlpool,  the  noble  ideas  live  and  flow  on  with  the 
new  waters.  We  are  now  in  a  kind  of  backwater  of 
the  great  river  of  Progress,  and  spinning  roimd  and 
round  in.  a  confusion  of  eddies*  and  efforts  to  get  on. 
AVhen  we  have  found  our  fresh  thougU;l:s  and  got  them 
clear,  we  shall  get  out  of  the  backwater  with  a  rush, 
and  stream  on  in  that  which  I  like  better  than  revolu- 
tion— steady  movement,  aware  of  itself,  to   distinctly 


220  Immortality. 

recognised  ends.  But  at  present  everyone  is  naturally 
dissatisfied  with,  the  want  of  purpose,  of  clear  aims,  of 
any  coherent  ideas  in  social,  political,  religious,  and 
artistic  life.  And  the  dissatisfaction  shows  itself  chiefly 
in  all  matters  which  belong  to  the  realm  of  art,  for 
in  art  one  always  finds  the  more  subtile  aspects  of  any 
society  reflected.  Our  more  modern  poets  and  painters 
find  nothing  calm  or  perfect  enough  in  modern  life  to 
represent.  They  go  back  out  of  the  present  to  the 
past ;  they  tell  us  stories  and  paint  us  scenes  from  the 
old  Greek  and  Mediseval  life.  They  try  to  recover  the 
dead  motives  of  a  dead  life,  and  a  whole  school  has 
sprung  up,  both  in  poetry  and  on  canvass,  which  possesses 
much  charm,  but  which  is  essentially  mournful  and 
retrograde,  which  smells  of  musk  and  ambergris,  wbose 
passion  is  more  that  of  exhausted  feeling  trying  by 
morbid  means  to  sting  itself  into  joy  than  the  frank 
and  healthy  passion  of  youth,  whose  notes  are  not 
native  to  English  soil,  and  whose  work  does  not  smack 
of  the  fresh  air,  nor  seem  done  face  to  face  with  na- 
ture, but  smells  of  scented  rooms,  lit  up  with  artificial 
light. 

Our  art  has  been  driven  from  the  present  to  the  past, 
and  those  who  enjoy  and  love  it,  naturally  cease  to  feel 
interest  in  the  future;  the  whole  tone  of  feeling  it 
encourages  tends  to  lessen  the  care  for  and  the  belief  in 
a  life  to  come. 

But  this  cannpt  last ;  the  present  is  always  too  strong 
for  the  past,  and  art,  and  philosophy,  and  literature, 
and  with  them  educated  society,  will  emerge  from  this 
backwater  when   modem    life   finds   clear   aims,    and 


Immortality,  221 

flow  on  in  new  channels.  Active  life  in  the  present  will 
then  produce  art  and  literature  to  represent  it,  and  the 
interest  in  the  present  will  make  the  future  so  interest- 
ing, that  the  tendency  to  believe  in  immoi-tality  will 
take  to  itself  fresh  life.  By  that  time  Christianity — 
I  mean  our  present  form  of  it,  which  is  also  in  this 
revolutionary  stage  of  confusion,  changing  old  opinions 
for  new — will  also  have  refitted  itself  to  the  hiqfhcr 
thoughts  and  wants  of  men;  and  its  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality, freed  from  the  low  ideas  with  which  it  has  been 
surrounded  by  a  dying  theology,  present  once  more  to 
men,  longing  again  to  live  for  ever  because  they  have 
found  a  vital  present,  a  glorious  ideal  to  which  they 
can  aspire  with  joy. 

For,  after  all,  what  is  at  the  root  of  this  belief  in 
annihilation  ?  It  is  that  our  theology  has  been  for  some 
years^  presenting  to  us  an  idea  of  God  wholly  inadequate 
to  our  present  intellectual  and  moral  conceptions,  and 
an  idea  of  man  which  we  now  reject  as  ignoble,  and  as 
nntrue  because  ignoble.  Not  that  this  idea  of  God  was 
inadequate  to  past  society,  or  that  idea  of  man  ignoble. 
They  were  then  as  high  as  most  men  could  receive, 
though  we  always  find  a  few  who  protested  against 
them,  and  rose  above  the  common  level.  But  thought 
on  these  subjects  is  now  up  to  that  of  the  higher  spirits 
of  the  past,  and  theology  must  rise  to  the  moral  and 
intellectual  level  of  the  present  before  immortality  can 
be  a  universal  faith  again. 

An  adequate  idea  of  God,  a  noble  idea  of  man,  these 
are  the  ideas  which,  reintroduced  into  theology,  will 
bring  back  the  belief  in  immortality,  for  they  will  render 


222  Tmniortality. 

the  theory  of  annihilation  intellectually  as  -well  as 
morally  absurd. 

The  common  notion  of  God  divides  His  being  from 
the  universe  and  from  mankind.  It  is  so  afraid  of 
being  called  pantheistic,  that  it  forgets  the  truth  w^hich 
is  in  pantheism.  If  nature  and  mankind  are,  as  a 
whole  or  in  any  of  their  parts,  capable  of  being  truly 
severed  from  God,  so  that  the  one  runs  along  like  a 
machine  which  may  run  down,  or  that  in  the  other,  one 
soul  can,  by  becoming  eternally  evil,  be  eternally  divided 
from  the  Godhead,  then  God  cannot  be  considered 
absolute  nor  all-comprehending  nor  all-powerful  for 
good.  There  are  points  at  which  His  power  fails,  His 
goodness  retires  from  the  field,  points  at  which  He  is 
forced  to  struggle,  and  the  possibility  of  inferring  these 
things  from  the  orthodox  idea  of  God  is  surely  incon- 
sistent with  the  idea  of  Him  which  we  feel  now  that  we 
ought  to  possess.  It  is  really  less  than  we  can  conceive, 
and  for  us  to  worship  it  any  longer  is  idolatry.  We 
must  have  an  adequate  idea  of  God,  and  till  we  get  it 
into  theology,  a  great  number  of  men  who  think  deeply 
wiU  be  atheists,  and  necessarily  disbelievers  in  immor- 
tality. 

Again,  owing  to  this  uncultivated  notion  of  a  God 
who  sits  apart,  at  a  distance  from  us,  we  are  forced 
to  assume  another  great  power  in  the  universe.  K  any 
one  of  us,  or  anything,  can  have,  or  retain  being,  apart 
from  Him,  then  there  must  be  another  source  of  being 
than  His.  And,  practically  speaking,  that  is  what  is 
held.  The  artist  talks  of  nature,  the  philosopher  of 
law,  the  theologian  of  the  devil,  and  we  have  a  dual 


Immortality.  223 

govemnlbnt  of  the  world,  in  which  God  tends  to  become 
more  and  more  a  remote  and  misty  phantom. 

Now,  I  say  if  we  believe  in  a  God  at  all,  that  the 
only  adequate  conception  of  Him  which  will  satisfy 
our  intellect  and  heart  alike,  is  one  which  conceives 
of  Him  as  the  sole  self-existing  Being  and  of  every- 
thing and  everyone  as  having  Being  only  in  His  Being. 
The  life  of  the  universe,  of  matter  and  spirit,  is  one  life 
— the  Life  of  God  infinitely  conditioned  in  and  through 
a  myriad  forms.  There  is  not  a  shred  of  the  world  called 
the  world  of  nature  which  is  not  held  in  Him,  and  is  not,^ 
indeed.  His  thought.  We  all  are,  only  because  we  are 
in  Him  and  part  of  His  being,  our  personality  held  in  His 
personality.  Do  not  call  this  pantheism.  It  may  be 
pantheism,  but  it  is  something  more  than  pantheism. 
It  is  not  saying  the  universe  is  God,  it  is  saying  God  is 
the  universe  and  something  more  than  the  universe. 
It  is  the  doctrine  which  S.  Paul  inferred  from  the  old 
Greek  poet :  '  In  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being ;  as  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  have  said.  For 
we  are  also  His  offspring.'  It  is  the  doctrine  of  S.  Paul 
himself:  *0f  Him,  and  by  Him,  and.  through  Him 
are  all  things ; '  and  the  moment  we  fully  conceive  that 
He  alone  is,  and  that  nothing  i3  which  is  not  He,  it 
becomes  intellectually  absurd  that  any  soul  should  go 
out  as  a  candle.  Once  having  been,  once  having  had 
consciousness,  once  having  had  personality,  it  is  im- 
possible to  lose  being,  consciousness,  and  personality. 
That  which  is  in  God,  in  eternal  Being,  cannot  perish. 

But  it  is  not  intellectually  absurd  when  God's  exist- 
ence is  denied  and  to  this  conclusion  men  come  who 


2  24  I  minor ta  lUy, 

think  of  wliat  they  mean  by  annihilation.  They  know 
that  the  denial  of  immortality  irresistibly  infers  atheism, 
that  if  there  is  Eternal  Being,  those  who  have  issued 
from  that  Being  and  have  their  being  in  Him  must  be 
immortal :  we  cannot  think  the  one  without  thinking 
the  other.  And  I  want  those  who  so  lightly  talk  of 
man  dying  for  ever  to  clearly  understand  either  that 
they  are  talking  nonsense,  if  they  confess  a  God,  or  that 
they  are  logically  driven  into  atheism. 

For  not  only  is  the  notion  of  annihilation  of  person- 
ality— that  is,  of  our  consciousness,  v/ill,  and  character 
— intellectually  absurd  in  face  of  an  adequate  intel- 
lectual conception  of  God,  it  is  also  morally  absurd  in 
face  of  an  adequate  moral  conception  of  God. 

But  the  fact  is  that  it  is  not  morally  absurd  to  many 
of  us,  because  we  have  no  adequate  moral  conception  of 
God.  The  moral  inadequacy  of  our  thojight  of  God  is 
chiefly  in  this,  that  we  accept  a  teaching  which  thinks 
of  Him  as  having  no  duties  to  His  children.  We  are 
told  that  He  has  a  Sovereign's  right  to  do  what  He  likes 
with  us,  and  that  we  have  no  business  to  judge  as  to  the 
right  and  wrong,  of  His  actions. 

I  deny  that  at  once  on  the  ground  already  laid  down, 
that  our  being  is  held  in  God's  being,  and  therefore  that 
what  is  truth  and  justice  and  love  to  us  is  the  same 
in  kind  in  us  as  in  God,  and  that  it  is  absurd  to  think 
otherwise.  But  as  these  teachers  do  think  otherwise, 
they  go  on  to  infer  that  things  which  would  seem 
unjust  if  done  by  a  man  a,re  not  unjust  if  done  by 
God.  We  are  told  that  He  creates  us  to  damn  us,  or 
leaves  us  alone  to  ruin  ourselves,  or  that  He  allows  us 


Immortality,  225 

to  be  children  of  the  devil,  things  so  absolutely  immoral 
in  an  earthly  father,  that  we  are  driven  either  into  a 
state  of  blind  submission  in  which  intellect  is  destroyed 
and  the  moral  sense  utterly  confused,  or  into  absolute 
revolt,  or  into  a  kind  of  hopeless  drifting  carelessness 
of  the  whole  matter.  And  in  the  last  state  of  mmd 
are  those  who  still  cling  by  old  custom  to  belief  in 
God  and  immortality,  but  who  have  no  real  pleasure 
or  interest  in  their  belief  in  whom  it  produces  no 
result. 

Now,  such  a  want  of  vital  faith  is  due  to  a  mean 
conception  of  their  own  moral  nature  following  on  a 
mean  conception  of  God's  moral  nature.  '  He  has  left 
me  to  myself,'  they  say ;  '  nay,  more,  I  am  told  t"hat 
I  am  vile  and  worthless  spiritually,  that  my  nature 
is  utterly  corrupt.  If  I  am  so  bad,'  they  go  on,  '  why 
should  I  care  what  becomes  of  me  ?  If  my  nature  is 
corrupt  throughout,  what  is  the  use  of  aspiring  to  be 
better  ? — nay,  I  do  not  believe  in  my  aspirations  :  am  I 
not  told  that  they  themselves  are  wicked  ? '  This  is  the 
way  they  have  argued  long  ago.  Now  they  have  ceased  to 
trouble  themselves  about  the  matter,  but  the  result  of 
the  argument  remains  as  an  unconscious  influence  below 
the  surface  of  their  life,  and  the  effect  is  a  total  loss  of 
interest  in  immortality,  amounting  to  practical  disbe- 
lief of  it. 

All  this  is  done  away  with  by  a  true  moral  concep- 
tion of  God  in  His  relation  to  us,  based  on  the  moral 
ideas  which  we  possess  ourselves  from  Him.  He  has 
sent  us  forth  from  Himself,  therefore  He  is  bound  to 
be,  we  feel,  in  the  highest  conceivable  sense  a  Father 


22  6'  Immortality, 

to  us,  and  He  is  oiir  Father.  We  can  never,  tlien,  be 
separated  from  Him,  never  let  alone  by  Him,  never 
sbut  np  bj  Him  in  eternal  evil.  Our  Being  has  come 
direct  from  His,  and  is  now  in  His  Being,  therefore  our 
nature  can  never  be  utterly  vile.  Our  aspirations  are 
His  voice  in  us ;  our  justice,  truth,  and  love,  such  as 
they  are,  are  still  the  same  in  kind  as  His. 

He  is  pure  moral  Being  :  therefore — since  we  cannot 
divide  ourselves  from  Him  and  since  He  is  bound  as^a 
Father  to  educate  us — we  must  reach  in  the  end  pure 
moral  being. 

It  is  thus  that  from  an  adequate  moral  conception  of 
God  we  arrive  at  the  second  thing  I  said  we  wanted 
to  restore  to  us  the  belief  in  immortality — an  adequate 
conception  of  man.  We  are  inseparably  united  to 
pure .  intellectual  and  moral  Being,  and  in  that  union 
we  are  great,  and  do  great  things  of  the  brain  and  of 
the  spirit. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  taking  both  of  these  things 
together — the  greatness  of  man  in  God,  and  the  abso- 
lute morality  of  God,  which  we  now  know  is  in  kind 
the  same  as  ours  —  let  us  see  if  annihilation  be  not 
morally  absurd,  if  the  being  of  God  be  granted. 

Of  course  I  shall  speak  in  what  follows  of  good 
men,  and  it  will  be  said  that  the  argument  does  not 
prove  that  the  wicked  will  not  be  annihilated.  But 
I  have  already  spoken  of  this  question  in  previous 
sermons,  and  I  hold  that  the  destruction  of  the  wicked 
is  morally  and  logically  impossible  if  there  be  a  God 
who  is  the  only  self-existing  Being,  and  if  He  be  a 
moral  Being.     It  is  a  question  of  redemption  beyond 


Ivtmortdlity.  227 

this   earth,  but  the  present  argument   deals  with  the 
question  as  it  lies  before  us  in  tliis  world. 

No  one  can  deny,  who  is  not  prejudiced  by  the  low 
theological  view  of  our  nature,  that  it  is  capable  of 
greatness  of  character.  In  every  age  there  have  been 
men  who  have  forgotten  self  for  the  sake  of  right  and 
truth  and  for  a  noble  cause,  even  though  the  self-forget- 
fulness  meant  death  ;  men  whose  glory  shines  with  the 
serene  light  of  stars  in  the  sky  which  arches  over  his- 
tory. Others,  too,  have  been,  whose  path  has  lain 
apart  from  fame,  the  quiet  martyrs  of  self-surrender, 
who  have  died  to  the  joys  of  life  for  the  sake  of  others' 
joy,  or  borne  in  the  eloquent  silence  of  resignation  bitter 
pain  and  grief. 

And  has  all  that  perished  for  them  ?  Has  the  noble 
effort  and  the  faithful  life  been  in  vain  for  those  who 
lived  it?  Are  they  only  to  live  in  our  memory  and 
love,  but  they  themselves  '  to  be  blown  about  the  desert 
dust  or  sealed  within  the  iron  hills '  ?  It  revolts  all 
our  moral  feeling  if  we  believe  in  a  moral  God.  Either 
there  is  no  God,  whose  children  we  are,  or  the  denial 
of  immortality  is  absurd.  There  is  nothing  between 
atheism  and  immortality. 

And  that  infinite  thirst  of  knowledge  we  possess,  tliat 
power  of  thought  which  sweeps  us  beyond  the  world  of 
sense  and  time  ;  that  inexhaustible  activity  of  imagina- 
tion by  which  we  create  new  worlds ;  our  passionate 
cry  for  the  rest  which  lies  in  harmony  of  nature ;  our 
desire  for  fuller  life  when  life  is  filled  with  great  thoughts 
and  pure  and  passionate  love  of  man ;  that  yearning  of 
the  spirit  for  freedom  from  sin  and  for  union  with  truth ; 


228  Immortality. 

that  ceaseless  cry  for  more  light ;  our  delight  in  reve- 
rencing something  better  than  ourselves,  in  ideal  ex- 
cellence ;  our  intense  sensibility  to  beauty  and  sublimity 
in  nature — have  these  no  final  cause  if  God  exists  ?  Didj 
He  give  us  these  powers  of  intellect  and  heart  and 
spirit — powers  which  draw  their  fire  from  the  fire  of 
His  eternal  Thought  and  Will — only  to  resume  them  into 
Himself,  to  lure  us  on  to  work  and  then  to  quench  our 
light ;  to  make  our  hopes  our  hell,  our  noblest  longings 
our  deepest  misery ;  to  extinguish  our  exhaustless 
effort  and  curiosity  in  the  degradation  of  an  eternal 
sleep  ?  Did  He  give  us  that  love  of  the  ideal,  that  de- 
light in  beauty,  that  tearful  interest  in  His  universe, 
only  to  make  the  grave  and  the  wretched  dust  of  our 
corruption  the  vain  and  miserable  end?  Has  He 
written  His  scorn  on  all  our  aspirations  after  truth 
and  light  and  holiness?  Docs  He  smile  with  con- 
temptuous pity  w^hen  men's  hearts  go  up  to  Him  in 
praise  for  the  freshness  and  radiance  of  the  spring? 
It  is  incredible.  Either  the  atheist  is  right,  or  that 
immortality  is  untrue  is  absurd. 

Look,  too,  at  our  triumph  over  death.  When  decay 
usurps  the  powers,  and  memory  and  life  slip  from  us 
like  a  dream,  it  is  then  that  our  inner  being  most  often 
rises  into  beauty  and  victory.  And  when  the  last 
act  of  the  man  is  the  assertion  of  his  immortality, 
does  the  Lord  of  Righteousness  contradict  him  in 
contempt  ?  Is  the  spirit  on  the  verge  of  its  greatest 
loss  at  its  very  noblest  moment  of  gain  ?  does  it  reach 
with  faithful  effort,  and  thrilled  with  divine  hope,  the 
mountain  peak,  only  to  topple  over  the  precipice  of 


Immortality,  229 

anniliilation  ?  Tlien  those  who  believe  in  God  are  the 
real  fools  of  the  world. 

Our  soul  swells  with  reverence  and  love  for  those 
who  held  life  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  truthful- 
ness to  right ;  our  soul  is  full  of  a  sad  condemnation  of 
those  who  prefer  to  live  when  life  is  infamous  ;  and  yet 
if  annihilation  be  true,  God  despises  the  nobility  which 
we  revere,  and  tacitly  approves  the  infamy  which  we 
condemn.  But  this  is  incredible  if  we  conceive  of  God 
as  moral :  it  is  hideous.  Either,  then,  there  is  no  God 
or  annihilation  is  false. 

Finally,  it  is  true  of  a  noble  human  life  that  it 
finds  its  highest  enjoyment  in  the  consciousness  of 
progress.  Our  times  of  greatest  pleasure  are  when 
we  have  won  some  higher  peak  of  difficulty,  trodden 
under  foot  some  evil,  refused  some  pleasant  tempta- 
tion for  truth's  sake,  been  swept  out  of  our  narrow 
self  by  love,  and  felt  day  by  day,  in  such  high  labours, 
so  sure  a  growth  of  moral  strength  within  us,  that  we 
cannot  conceive  of  an  end  of  growth. 

And  when  all  that  is  most  vigorous  within  us,  does 
God — pure  moral  Being — does  God  say  No  ?  Is  that 
insatiable  delight  in  progress  given  to  the  insect  of  an 
hour?  Does  there  seem  to  be  a  Spirit  who  leads  us 
through  life,  conquering  the  years  in  us,  redeeming  us 
from  all  evil,  bringing  in  us  calm  out  of  sorrow,  faith 
out  of  doubt,  strength  out  of  trial ;  and  when  He  has 
made  us  great  of  spirit  like  Himself,  does  He  bury  all 
that  wealth  of  heart  in  nothingness  ? 

What  incredible  thing  is  this  ? — only  credible  if  there 
be  no  God. 


230  ^Melencolia' 


melencolia: 

*  For  in  mucli  -wisdom  is  much  grief:  and  lie  that  increaseth  knowledge 
increaseth  sorrow.' — Eccles.  i.  18. 


The  first  impulse  of  many,  on  hearing  this  text,  "would 
be  to  give  it  a  blunt  contradiction.  In  their  opinion, 
to  increase  knowledge  is  to  increase  pleasure,  and  their 
opinion  is  true.  The  pleasure  of  a  thousand  associations 
which  wake  pity,  and  kindle  enthusiasm,  and  adorn  the 
meanest  place  in  which  a  great  action  has  been  done, 
is  the  reward  of  the  historian's  knowledge.  The  pleasure 
of  discovery,  of  confirming  theory  by  fact,  of  recreating 
the  past  earth  and  peopling  its  plains  with  life — if  these 
accompany  the  common  walk  of  one  who  knows  even  a 
little  of  natural  philosophy,  what  deeper  pleasures  are 
his  lot  whose  extensive  knowledo:e  can  correlate  the 
facts  of  many  different  spheres  of  science,  and  so  harmo- 
nise the  universe  ? 

The  pleasure  of  recognising  the  truth  in  the  crea- 
tions of  great  poets,  of  seeing  into  the  secret  springs 
(>f  human  action;  of  a  fine  and  subtile  tolerance,  of 
playing  on  the  hearts  of  men,  of  making  society  musical 
by  bringing  out  of  different  temperaments  accordant 
tones ;  of  giving  sym|)athy  and  directing  help  aright 
■ — these  are  the  delights  which  come  of  a  fine  knowledge 


*  Meleficoiia.'  231 

of  the  human  heart.  In  every  region  of  man's  activity, 
he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  pleasure. 

But  is  this  the  whole  account  of  the  matter  ?  Wo 
may  contradict  the  text  as  we  please,  but  we  do  not  in 
reality  contradict  it  by  asserting  its  opposite  ;  wo  only 
complete  it  by  asserting  its  other  half.  Both  statements 
are  half-truths.  The  whole  truth  of  the  thing  is  only 
found  in  the  assertion  of  both.  He  that  increaseth 
knowledge  increaseth  pleasure,  and — increaseth  sorrow. 

For  in  this  world,  pleasure  and  sorrow  are  two  sisters 
who  never  live  very  far  apart.  Every  pleasure  which 
comes  to  the  surface  of  the  lake  of  life  has  had  its 
own  sorrow  born  with  it  in  the  depths  below.  Sooner 
or  later,  it  too  will  come  to  the  surface,  and  the  blood- 
red  lily  of  pain  will  replace  the  sunny  lily  of  pleasure. 

Knowledge  and  toil  are  the  sources  of  joy,  but  they 
are  also  the  sources  of  sorrow. 

This  is  what  Albert  Diirer  saw  and  engraved  in  his 
subtile  print  of  '  Melencolia.'  All  of  you  are  probably 
acquainted  with  it,  and  I  take  it  with  the  passage  in 
Ecclesiastes  as  my  text,  for  tlie  key-note  of  the  whole 
is,  he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth  sorrow. 

This  would  be  especially  true,  in  the  artist's  time,  of 
those  who  were  attempting  to  penetrate  into  the  secrets 
of  the  physical  world.  For  the  true  methods  of  scien- 
tific investigation  had  not  been  found  ;  and  though  the 
alchemist  and  the  natural  philosopher,  whose  instruments 
are  seen  in  the  engraving,  lit  upon  discoveries  which 
seemed  to  open  vistas  of  knowledge,  they  could  not 
iipply  them,  much  less  generalise  them.  At  the  end  of  a 
long  life  of  work,  they  were  no  further  than  before ; 


232  'Melencolia' 

the  knowledge  they  had  won  served  only  to  tantalise 
them. 

The  opening  soliloquy  of  the  great  German  poem  may 
well  express  the  intolerable  melancholy  which  seized  on 
all  physical  students  of  that  time — the  bitter  conscious- 
ness of  their  fruitless  work,  their  hopeless  incapacity 
to  know. 

We  are  freed  from  that  grief,  for  we  are  consciously 
advancing,  having  found  true  methods.  But  Diirer 
must  have  met  many  who  had  worn  out  their  life,  and 
sometimes  their  brain,  in  the  service  of  the  crucible. 
But  the  same  profound  pain  besets  us  in  the  science  of 
metaphysics  and  of  theology,  and  for  the  same  reason — 
the  want  of  true  methods.  Many  a  thinker  who  has 
spent  life  in  passionate  labour  to  solve  the  problems  of 
the  soul,  is  seized,  when  the  energy  of  the  brain  begins 
to  fail,  with  the  biting  sorrow  which  is  born  of  fruitless 
labour. 

But  the  sorrow  which  we  describe  is  never,  when 
the  man  is  true,  a  base,  but  a  noble  one.  And  so, 
Diirer's  lonely  figure,  the  genius  of  the  labour  and 
knowledge  of  the  earth,  is  crowned  with  the  laurel  and 
winged  with  the  mighty  pens  of  thought  and  imagina- 
tion. 

Nor  is  this  sorrow  felt  at  all  times,  but  at  intervals 
when  labour  and  thought  are,  for  a  time,  forgotten,  and 
in  a  moment  of  pause  unconscious  meditation  sets  in. 
It  is  the  attitude  of  arrested  thought  in  which  the  seated 
figure  reposes,  her  cheek  upon  her  hand,  her  compass 
idle,  her  book  unread,  her  instruments  scattered  idly  at 
her  feet,  her  keys  unused,  her  very  wolf-hound,  sym- 


'MelencoHa'  233 

pathising  with,  her  mood  in  his  own  way,  fast  asleep ; 
her  eyes  gazing  into  the  void. 

Su3h  moments  are  not  unknown  to  us,  when  the  pen 
drops,  or  the  spade  falls  from  the  hand,  or  the  analysis 
is  forgotten,  and  in  an  instant  we  float  away  upon  that 
vague  ocean  of  questioning  thought  whose  .depths  no 
soimding-line  of  ours  has  ever  fathomed.  Everyone 
knows  that  the  atmosphere  of  these  pauses  is  that  of  a 
noble  melancholy. 

Now,  what,  in  the  artist's  imagination,  were  the 
subtile  sadnesses  which  characterised  such  a  moment  ? 
We  may  guess  at  them  by  the  symbols  which  he  places 
round  his  figure.  But  they  are  many :  on  one  only 
and  what  it  suggests  we  speak  to-day.  Diirer  has  ex- 
pressed the  one  certainty  in  this  world  of  uncertainty, 
the  demonstrative  certainty  of  the  science  of  numbers, 
in  the  four-square  tablet  fixed  above  the  winged  genius 
in  the  wall  of  the  house,  all  the  sixteen  squares  of  which 
contain  a  number.  Whether  one  adds  up  these  num- 
bers horizontally,  vertically,  or  diagonally,  they  have  the 
same  result. 

Now  the  melancholy  which  arises  from  the  vague 
answers  which  we  ciin  only  suggest  to  many  of  our 
deepest  questions  is  made  greater  by  the  clear  answers 
which  our  questions  receive  in  science.  Distinctness 
in  one  sphere  seems  to  suggest  with  a  mocking  irony 
that  distinctness  might  be  reached  in  all,  if  we  had 
power.  We  have  wings  then,  but  we  have  the  misery 
of  knowing  that  they  are  not  strong  enough.  The  more 
we  know,  the  greater  becon^es  the  number  of  things  we 
have  to  harmonise,  the  deeper  our  conviction  that  we 
11 


2  34  *  Melencolia* 

see  throiigli  a  glass,  darkly.  One  certainty  makes  all 
our  uncertainties  more  painful,  but  it  makes  tenfold 
more  painful  the  uncertainties  of  the  world  of  the  spirit. 
The  things  of  the  profoundest  interest,  the  existence  of 
God  and  what  is  His  relation  to  us  ;  the  reality  of  im- 
mortality ;  the  meaning  of  evil,  the  use  of  sorrow ;  what 
we  are,  whether  '  the  cunningest  clock  in  the  universe,' 
or  a  living  will  and  spirit,  free  to  act  upon  and  change 
the  world  abound  us — ^these  things  we  cannot  demon- 
strate ;  often  we  float  between  belief  and  unbelief  of 
them,  as  we  float  ourselves  between  life  and  death.  It 
is  our  sincerest  sorrow  that  the  things  we  want  most 
in  our  most  earnest  moments,  we  know  least  about, 
accurately ;  and  the  things  we  want  least,  we  are  best 
acquainted  with. 

In  another  way  also  the  increase  of  scientific  know- 
ledge increases  sorrow.  It  gives  pleasure  to  those  in  the 
sphere  of  that  knowledge  ;  it  increases  the  sorrow  of 
many  who  are  not  within  that  sphere.  For  the  solution 
of  many  scientific  problems  has  set  before  theologians 
and  many  Christian  men  who  love  the  old  opinions  in 
which  they  have  been  brought  up,  new  difficulties  in 
their  region,  new  troubles  for  their  early  faith.  The 
unknitting  of  one  enigma  is  often  the  knitting  together 
of  a  hundred  elsewhere.  Peace  made  in  one  sphere  of 
knowledge  is  often  war  made  in  another.  The  sufiering 
caused  among  thousands  by  scientific  discoveries  is  a- 
real  suffering. 

Therefore,  as  Christ's  minister,  I  would  ask  scientific 
men  to  remember  this,  and  to  be  tolerant,  if  those  whom 
they  touch  so  rudely  cry  out.     It  is  not  from  anger 


'Melencolia!  235 

they  cry  out  so  much  as  from  pain.  I  ask  for  tho 
gentleness  of  superior  knowledge,  for  some  feeling  that 
the  scientific  sphere  of  thought  docs  not  include  all 
the  interests  of  men ;  for  such  thought  of  the  suflfering 
they  give  to  the  weak  as  will  lead  them  to  explain  how, 
in  their  opinion,  their  discoveries  bear  upon  matters  of 
faith.  If  the  leaders  of  science  in  England  will  only 
explain  their  position  and  try  to  understand  that  of  the 
theologians,  omitting  a  few  sneers  which  for  the  time 
reduce  them  to  the  level  of  their  violent  opponents, 
they  will  do  a  real  good.  I  do  not  want  the  slightest 
relaxation  in  any  effort  to  find  truths,  nor  the  slightest 
hesitation  in  expounding  them,  because  of  the  suffer- 
ing they  may  inflict.  If  a  thousand  old  beliefs  were 
ruined  in  our  march  to  truth,  we  must  still  march  on. 
But  I  ask  scientific  men  to  do  their  spiriting  gently, 
or,  as  I  should  say,  in  the  spirit  of  Christ ;  severe  to 
Pharisaism,  but  kind  to  weakness  and  ignorance ;  not 
too  ready  to  find  Pharisaism  everywhere  nor  to  expect 
too  much  of  others,  but  presuming  that  many  have 
as  much  real  difficulty  in  accepting  their  propositions 
as  they  would  have  in  accepting  those  of  the  orthodox. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  claim  tolerance  for  the  natural 
philosophers  from  the  orthodox.  The  increase  of  their 
knowledge  is  to  many  scientific  men  an  increase  of 
sorrow,  for  it  brings  with  it  isolation  from  the  ranks  of 
faith.  They  are  the  servants  and  soldiers  of  physical 
truth,  and  they  are  devoted  to  their  mistress.  I  know 
that  they  would  suffer  martyrdom  as  readily  and  as 
firmly  as  any  of  the  Christian  martyrs  rather  than  deny 
their  faith.     I  know  that  their  sacrifice  of  wealth  and 


2^6  »       '  Melencolia. 


o 


of  the  world  to  the  pursuit  of  truth  would  put  to  shame 
the  life  of  many  a  religious  boaster.  One  need  but 
mention  Faraday  to  prove  this.  All  the  world  knows 
the  sacrifices  he  made  for  the  sake  of  science. 

But  they  are  often  forced  to  put  forward  truths 
which  conflict  with  orthodox  views.  A  cry  is  at  once 
raised  against  them,  and  they  are  forced  into  an  atti- 
tude of  opposition.  Their  highest  duty,  the  discovery 
of  truth,  is  made  their  greatest  sin.  They  cannot  cease 
their  work  without  being  guilty  of  the  worst  possible 
falsehood — yet  this  devotion  is  made  the  means  of 
isolating  them,  the  source  of  accusations  which,  if  true, 
would  separate  them  altogether  from  the  realm  of 
spiritual,  even  of  imaginative  feeling.  I  claim  for  them 
in  the  name  of  Christ  grateful  consideration.  Some  of 
them  feel  keenly  their  enforced  isolation  ;  and  the  scorn 
and  hard  speaking,  and  sometimes  the  touch  of  bravado 
in  the  tone  of  others,  have  their  roots  in  the  want  of 
thought  and  want  of  charity  with  which  they  have  been 
met. 

Thus  not  only  does  the  increase  of  knowledge  increase 
the  sorrow  which  comes  with  the  fresh  statement  of 
theological  problems,  but  it  also  increases,  at  present, 
the  division  between  religious  and  scientific  men.  The 
proper  remedy  for  this  last  sorrowful  thing  is  the  ex- 
tension of  the  spirit  of  Christ's  love.  If  men  were  to 
believe  and  hope  the  best  of  one  another,  if  men  strove 
to  understand  each  other,  we  might  hope  for  a  quicker 
reconciliation  between  science  and  religion. 

But,  resuming  our  main  thread  of  thought,  what  is 
the  remedy  for  the  sadness  of  increased  uncertainty 


^Mekncolia^  237 

wLicn  growing  knowledge  has  added  to  spiritual  pro- 
blems ?  The  remedy  is  plainly  stated  in  the  New 
Testament.  But  let  us  see  if  we  cannot  approach  the 
New  Testament  statement  from  the  side  of  scientific 
practice,  and  so  strengthen  its  force. 

The  certainties  of  science  are  mixed  up  also  with 
uncertainties.  Beyond  what  is  known  extends  a  belt 
of  shadow  land,  over  which  the  clouds  lift  and  fall.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  many  of  the  assumed 
theories  of  science  are  not  and  probably  never  can  be 
demonstrated,  there  are  points  in  all  the  sciences 
where  intellect  at  present  fails  and  where  investiga- 
tion has  no  further  materials.  The  cloud  settles  down  ; 
the  questions,  eagerly  put,  remain  unsolved.  Towards 
these  uncertainties  what  is  the  practice  and  the  attitude 
of  men  of  science  ?  It  is,  first — I  put  it  in  Scripture 
words — that  of  men  who  possess  a  '  faith  which  worketh 
by  love.'  They  believe  in  truth,  and  their  faith  works 
through  love  of  truth.  Nature  may  seem  to  err,  seem 
to  contradict  herself,  but  she  does  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other.  It  is  we  who  are,  they  say,  blind,  defective, 
i<rnorant.  But  if  we  are  faithful  to  truth  and  love  it : 
if  we  do  not  relax  our  questioning,  we  shall  be  rewarded 
by  finding  truth;  and  if  we  are  not,  we  shall  have 
prepared  the  way  for  others.  It  is  not  only  in  the 
spiritual  world  but  also  in  the  scientific  that  the  words 
of  Christ  are  true.  '  Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive ;  seek,  and 
ye  shall  find ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  to  you.' 

So,  though  there  is  a  sadness  of  science  born  of 
uncertainty,  it  is  a  noble  sadness.  It  is  felt  only  in 
moments  when  work  is  suddenly  suspended ;  and  the 


238  '^  Melencolia! 

effect  it  has  is  not  despairing,  but  inspiring.  It  is  a 
sadness  which,  does  not  last  long  enough  to  cripple 
energy  or  to  pass  into  despair.  It  stings,  on  the  con- 
trary, into  activity,  and  its  legitimate  child  is  hope.  It 
is  a  sadness  which  has  wings,  and  is  crowned  with 
the  foliage  of  spring.  For  it  has  faith  in  truth  which 
works  by  love  of  truth. 

Well,  what  has  been  the  result  of  this  kind  of  work 
spread  over  many  years  9  The  swiftest  and  the  safest 
success !  In  other  spheres,  then,  and  in  a  different 
meaning,  this  text  is  true,  '  This  is  the  victory  which 
overcometh  the  world  ;  even  our  faith.'  Not  credulity, 
remember,  not  trust  in  authority  as  such,  but  faith  in 
ultimate  order :  the  two  highest  expressions  of  which 
faith  in  the  case  of  the  physical  philosopher  are,  first, 
patience  in  investigation  and  reticence  of  decision — for 
'  he  that  believeth  shall  not  make  haste  ; '  and,  secondly, 
systematic  scepticism,  till  absolute  demonstration  is 
effected ;  for  the  moment  a  physical  philosopher  is  so 
enamoured  of  his  theory  as  to  consider  it  proved  before 
it  is  proved,  he  is  punished  by  being  rendered  blind  to 
new  light. 

In  every  way  this  is  a  lesson  which  we  would  do  well 
to  learn.  We  are  surrounded  with  uncertainties  be- 
longing to  the  sphere  of  the  spirit.  We  have  enough 
light  up  to  a  certain  point — -enough  to  walk  by ;  beyond 
that,  the  cloud  settles  down.  We  put  question  after 
question  ;  each  one  has  its  own  nest  of  difficulties,  and 
out  of  the  calm  heavens  no  answer  is  at  once  vouch- 
safed. Nothing  is  more  astonishing  to  me  than  the 
way  in  which  people  expect,  and  even  claim,  that  their 


*  Melencolia!  239 

spiritual  enigmas  should  at  once  be  resolved  without 
any  trouble  on  their  part,  without  any  work,  without 
any  investigation.  They  build  up  theories  of  theology 
and  explain  all  things  by  their  theories ;  but  they  do  not 
take  the  pains  to  bring  their,  theories  face  to  face  with 
the  facts  of  spiritual  life.  They  are  precisely  in  the 
same  ]gosition  towards  a  true  science  of  the  spirit  that 
the  old  scholastic  philosophers  were  towards  a  true 
science  of  nature.  Suddenly  their  theory  is  forced  into 
contact  with  a  spiritual  fact — ^the  revolt,  for  example,  of 
the  moral  sense  of  men  against  the  punishment  of  the 
innocent  as  an  adequate  satisfaction  for  the  sin  of  the 
guilty — and  then  the  whole  theory  breaks  up  into  frag- 
ments, and  they  either  cling  blindly  to  it  in  passionate 
anger,  or  they  are  plunged  into  the  despair  of  eternal 
night.  They  become  fanatics  or  infidels.  Their  dark 
anger,  and  their  melancholy  hopelessness,  are  alike 
ignoble.  But  for  the  large  class  who  are  not  slaves  to 
theories  but  touched  now  and  then  with  the  melancholy 
bom  of  uncertainty,  what  is  the  remedy  ? 

It  is  the  same  in  principle  as  that  of  the  natural 
philosopher.  It  is  faith  in  God  which  worketh  by  love 
of  God.  Tlie  root  of  our  cowardice,  of  our  hesitation, 
of  our  inactive  melancholy,  is  our  faithlessness.  We 
are  not  asked  at  first  to  believe  in  certain  doctrines,  or 
in  the  opinions  of  men.  We  are  asked  to  believe  in 
Eternal  Eight,  in  a  Father  of  spirits  whose  will  is  good. 
This  is  the  first  and  foremost  step.  And  belief  in  this 
Being  is  not  credulity,  nor  is  it  founded  on  mere 
authority.  It  is  based  on  the  moral  intuitions,  it 
becomes  a  moral  certainty  to  many  by  the  way  it  lias 


240  ^  Melencolia! 

answered  the  personal  difficulties  of  tlie  sonl  in  daily 
experience,  by  the  way  in  which  it  has  supported  the 
soul  in  trial,  enabled  it  to  conquer  eril  and  grow  in 
good  during  the  long  struggle  of  a  lifetime :  it  draws 
to  itself  proof  after  proof  by  the  explanations  which  it 
has  given  in  the  past  to  the  spiritual  difficulties  of  the 
race.  If,  then,  we  believe  in  absolute  goodness,,  truth, 
justice,  and  love  in  God,  why  are  we  idle,  indifferent, 
fearful,  or  ignobly  sad,  always  complaining  of  the  un- 
intelligible world?  Our  faith  should  be  a  working 
quality,  working  through  love  of  perfect  right.  Then, 
when  we  find  evil  in  the  world,  apparent  contradictions  of 
love,  apparent  violations  of  justice,  apparent  cruelties, 
darkness  where  we  most  hoped  and  expected  clear  light, 
we  do  not  accuse  God  any  more  than  the  philosophers 
accuse  nature.  We  accuse  ourselves  :  we  are  defective, 
we  say,  blind,  ignorant.  Some  evil  has  set  us  wrong, 
our  nature  has  got  twisted.  Let  us  recognise  our  want 
and  seek  the  remedy,  let  us  set  our  wrong  right,  cure 
ourselves  of  our  evil ;  feeling  sure  that,  if  we  seek  the 
Bighteous  One,  He  is  bound  by  His  nature  to  help  us. 
For  if  we  be  faithful  to  God,  and  love  Him,  if  we  go  on 
working,  and  questioning,  striving  and  experimenting, 
asking,  asking,  in  the  prayer  of  action  in  accordance 
with  what  we  know  for  certain  is  right,  we  shall  be 
rewarded  by  the  slow  dissipation  of  uncertainties.  I  do 
not  say  that  all  uncertainties  will  be  cleared  away,  for 
that  would  mean  our  perfection.  But  enough  will  be 
dispersed  to  enable  us  to  work  with  hope,  to.  fill  us  with 
a  vital  certainty  of  future  attainment;  enough  to  in- 
duce us  to  keep  the  torch  of  effort  alight,  and  to  hand 


^Mekncolia!  241 

it  on  witli  assurance  to  the   seekers  for  truth  who 
follow  us. 

It  is  true  we  are  not  altogether  freed  from  melan- 
choly, but  it  is  no  longer  what  it  was.  We  still  fall, 
when  life  i)auses  and  we  are  weary,  into  the  meditative 
melancholy  of  which  we  have  spoken,  but  ifc  is  the  noble 
melancholy  which  nrges  us  to  labour,  and  is,  in  fact, 
that  passing  passiveness  of  thought  in  which  exhaustion 
is  repaired  and  new  force  stored  up  for  toil.  For,  he 
who  is  instinct  with  love  of  God,  and  rooted  in  faith  in 
God,  cannot  rest  in  sadness  till  sadness  becomes  weak- 
ness and  hopelessness.  His  own  thought  *  drives  him 
like  a  goad.'  He  springs  once  more  into  the  doing  of 
justice,  love,  and  truth,  and  as  he  does  these  things  the 
dawn  grows  brighter  in  the  sky,  the  morning  comes,  and 
his  life,  at  last,  is  flooded  with  the  sunshine  of  belief 
that  all  is  well.  His  faith  has  overcome  the  lazy,  faith- 
less, lifeless,  fearful  spirit  of  the  world. 

Lastly.  This  is  not  a  faith  in  the  commandments 
•  and  doctrines  of  men.  It  is  a  faith  in  Eternal  Love.  It 
is  not  a  blind  credulity  ;  it  is  a  faith  which  the  man  has 
proved  in  adversity,  and  by  which  he  has  conquered. 
It  is  not  a  faith  which  reposes  on  authority;  it  is  a  faith 
which,  as  it  developes,  he  finds  answer  one  question  after 
another.  It  is  not  a  faith  which  hurries  to  its  end  and 
is  indignant  if  a  spiritual  difficulty  is  not  solved  im- 
mediately ;  it  is  a  faith  which  has  learnt  something  of 
the  slowness  with  which  God  educates  the  i*ace,  and 
therefore  will  not  rashly  make  a  theory,  and  say.  This, 
and  this  only,  is  the  solution.  It  is  a  patient  and 
reticent  faith ;  it  is,  if  I  may  use  the  word,  a  sceptical, 


242  '  Melencolia^ 

that  is,  an  enquiring  faith,  which  is  not  satisjfied  with  the 
light  it  has,  but  ever  on  the  watch  for  brighter  light ;  it 
holds  to  all  opinions  and  theories  slightly,  being  ready 
to  surrender  them  for  higher  truth.  It  is  satisfied  to 
clothe  itself  for  the  time  being  in  existing  formulae, 
so  long  as  they  help  it  forward,  but  always  sceptical 
of  their  enduring  worth,  because  it  is  not  sceptical  of 
progress ;  a  faith,  therefore,  which  no  revolution  in 
religious  thought,  no  change  in  religious  opinion,  no 
new  discovery  in  any  other  sphere  of  truth  which  seems 
to  conflict  with  its  truth  for  a  time,  can  ever  shake  or 
paralyse.  Nay,  it  expects  these  revolutions,  for  it  be- 
lieves in  progressive  revelation.  It  does  not  believe 
that  all  truth  has  been  disclosed,  and  stagnate  in  that 
thought.  It  believes  in  a  Father  who  is  guiding  the 
world  into  the  whole  of  truth,  not  fixing  the  world  down 
to  a  truth. 

This  is  the  true  method  of  seeking  into  the  mysteries 
of  the  spiritual  world,  and  it  is  a  method  strictly  analo- 
gous to  that  used  by  the  natural  philosopher  who  seeks- 
into  the  mysteries  of  the  physical  world. 

Use  it,  and  however  the  increase  of  knowledge  may 
increase  your  sorrow,  your  sorrow  under  its  influence 
will  be  noble  while  it  lasts — invigorating,  not  depres- 
sing. It  wiU  kindle  you  into  the  action  of  faith  and 
love,  and  in  action  it  will  be  transmuted  into  joy. 


Melcncolia!  243 


'MELBNCOLIA, 

*For  in  much  wisdom  is  much  grief:  and  he  that  increaseth  knowledge 
increaseth  sorrow.' — Eccles.  i.  18. 


In  speaking  of  this  text  last  Sunday,  we  considered 
only  the  sorrow  which  may  arise  from  the  increase  of 
scientific  knowledge,  and  its  remedy.  We  found  that 
the  idea  of  the  German  artist  in  his  plate  of '  Melen- 
colia'  was  at  the  root  of  the  whole  question.  In 
moments  of  quiet  thought,  when,  as  is  the  case  with 
Diirer's  great  Genius  of  Knowledge  and  Toil,  we  are 
suddenly  arrested  and  pass  into  the  region  of  specula- 
tive questioning,  the  contrast  between  the  possibility 
of  demonstrating  truth,  for  example,  in  the  science  of 
numbers,  and  the  impossibility  of  demonstrating  the 
truth,  for  example,  of  immortality,  weaves  a  subtile 
sadness  for  our  souls. 

But  there  are  other  causes  for  melancholy;  and 
it  is  interesting  to  see  what  the  Nuremberg  artist 
says  about  them.  The  great  genius,  for  I  must  repeat 
the  description,  sits  in  an  hour  of  pause  from  labour, 
her  head  resting  on  her  hand,  looking  forth  in  resolute 
but  infinite  sadness  of  thought  into  the  world  of 
being.  Her  eyes  see,  but  see  nothing  of  the  things 
around  her ;  her  arm  rests  on  a  great  book  and  her 


244  '  Melencolia* 

hand  grasps  tlie  open  compasses.  The  histruments  of 
the  carpenter,  geometer,  and  alchemist  lie  at  her  feet, 
where  also  sleeps  a  great  wolf-hound.  Over  her  head 
the  square  window  in  the  house  is  divided  into  sixteen 
squares,  each  filled  with  a  number.  In  whatever  way 
you  add  these — horizontally,  vertically,  or  diagonally — 
they  make  the  same  sum,  thirty-four;  this,  with  the 
poised  balances,  expresses  that  scientific  certainty  of 
which  we  have  spoken.  By  the  side  of  this  square 
hangs  an  hour-glass  whose  sands  are  half  run,  and  a 
bell.  Seated  on  a  millstone  leaning  against  the  housB, 
is  a  small  winged  boy  with  tablet  and  pencil.  Far  ofi*, 
beyond  the  platform,  the  sea  is  seen,  with  castles  and 
towns  on  the  shcre :  the  sun  has  set,  and  a  fiery  comet, 
whose  rays  fill  the  whole  sky,  menaces  the  world  below, 
but  over  it  arches  a  rainbow,  and  across  it  flies  a  bat 
with  outstretched  wings  bearing  a  scroll,  on  which  is 
written  '  Melencolia.' 

"What  did  Albert  Diirer  mean  by  this  ?  I  said  last 
Sunday  that  the  first  thing  to  remember  in  explaining 
the  picture  (which  is,  indeed,  an  illustration  of  my  text 
and  of  the  feeling  of  this  whole  book  of  Ecclesiastes) 
was  that  the  Angel  of  Knowledge  and  Labour  was  repre- 
sented in  that  hour  of  sudden  arrest  of  work  which 
comes  not  rarely  upon  our  life,  when  carried  away  in 
a  moment  into  the  world  of  speculative  meditation  we 
ask  ourselves.  What  has  my  labour  done  for  others,  or 
for  me  ? — what  is  my  knowledge  worth  ?  The  temper  of 
such  an  hour  is  one  of  melancholy.  It  arose,  partly,  as 
we  have  seen,  from  the  contrast  of  one  certainty  with 
many  uncertainties,  and  the  terrible  irony  in  that. 


'Mclencolia!  245 

It  arises,  next,  from  the  thouglit  that  life  is  too  short, 
even  for  the  most  ardent  labour,  to  wrest  from  the 
bosom  of  nature,  or  the  ocean  of  the  soul,  a  thousandth 
part  of  their  secrets.  Before  we  have,  as  it  were, 
crossed  the  threshold  of  the  temple  of  knowledge,  the 
sands  in  the  glass  above  our  head  are  half  run,  and  we 
place  the  bell  there,  in  readiness  to  toll  our  requiem. 
Man  is  not,  but  is  '  like  a  thing  of  nought ;  his  time 
passeth  awaj  like  a  shadow.'  This  is  one  of  the 
elements  of  such  an  hour  of  melancholy.  And  it 
is  the  increase  of  knowledge  which  has  given  it  all 
its  serious  pain.  For  as  long  as  we  knew  little  and 
flitted  from  one  enjoyment  of  sense  to  another,  finding 
all  our  pleasure  in  the  excitements  of  mere  animal 
being,  life  had  no  noble  value  in  it.  We  wished  to  live, 
because  it  was  pleasant  to  live,  and  when  we  thought 
of  death,  it  was,  not  with  the  solemn  melancholy  of 
which  we  speak,  but  either  with  a  light  laugh  as  not 
realising  it,  or,  if  realising  it,  with  a  bitter  anger. 
But  as  our  knowledge  increased,  and  our  labour  became 
more  earnest,  and  we  felt  that  there  were  endless 
capabilities  in  us  of  attaining  the  first  and  of  making 
the  second  useful  to  man — then,  in  an  hour  of  sudden 
and  secluded  thought,  when  we  realised  that  our  life 
was  more  than^half  over,  that  all  the  mighty  interests, 
hopes,  and  powers  which  had  come  to  us,  and  made 
existence  a  scene  of  dramatic  passion,  were  soon  to 
be  paralysed  with  age  and  smitten  with  death — then, 
the  tide  of  a  noble  melancholy  floated  in  upon  the  soul. 
Our  work  rests,  our  books  are  clasped,  our  soul  looks 
through  our  eyes  far  into  the  future.     *  Death  comes/ 


246  ^Melencolia* 

we  think  ;  '  is  all  I  have  done  for  others  and  learnt  for 
m}  self  lost  ?  Why  may  I  not  live  to  finish  my  work, 
to  complete  and  round  my  knowledge  ?  If  death  be  all, 
then  the  increase  of  my  knowledge  is  the  increase  of 
my  sorrow.' 

The  remedy  and  the  answer  lie  in  the  teaching  of 
Christ.  He  has  brought,  it  is  true,  upon  the  world,  an 
increased  dread  of  death,  for  He  has  deepened  the  sense 
of  moral  responsibility.  But  in  deepening  responsibility 
He  has  also  brought  upon  the  world  an  increased  de- 
light in  life,  because  He  has  made  life  more  earnest, 
active,  and  progressive.  Duties  which  have  a  clear 
fulfilment  possible,  aspirations  which  have  a  true  hope 
of  being  realised — these  make  life  interesting,  alive, 
even  passionate.  The  first  remedy,  then,  when  the 
haunting  thought  of  death  comes  to  shroud  our  little 
term  of  being  with  melancholy,  is  to  take  up  with 
eagerness  again  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  life. 
In  doing  these  the  sense  of  life,  and  necessarily  the 
sense  of  joy,  will  begin  again  to  thrill  within  us ;  things 
which  cannot  die  and  are  gifted  with  the  power  of 
convincing  us  of  their  innate  immortality — love,  justice, 
truth,  and  purity — become  ours  by  the  doing  of  them, 
and  weave  their  divine  eternity  into  our  being.  We 
look  to  Christ,  and  the  two  sources  of  the  melancholy 
of  which  we  speak — the  idea  of  our  work  perishing,  the 
idea  of  a  cessation  of  the  growth  of  knowledge — vanish 
away.  He  died,  it  is  true,  when  half  the  natural  sands 
of  life  were  run.  But  we  see  that  his  labour  has  not 
died  with  Him.  It  has  passed  as  a  power  and  life  into 
tile  world.     While  He  lived,  his  words  and  deeds  were 


*  Mclcncoli'a'  247 

only  forcible  and  productive  in  Palestine.  Now  that 
He  has  passed  from  earth,  they  have  pervaded  nations. 
And  our  work  done  in  his  spirit  has  the.  same  infinite 
quality.  It  does  not  cease  with  our  breath.  It  lives 
and  moves  in  other  men.  It  is  handed  on  from 
generation  to  generation  in  a  tradition  of  action, 
accumulating  force  from  the  new  human  power  which 
different  men  have  added  to  it.  Being  done  in  union 
with  the  eternal  humanity  of  Christ,  it  belongs  to  and 
suits  developing  mankind — nay,  more,  it  developes  with 
mankind.  All  we  have  to  do  is  to  do  it  now  with  all 
our  heart,  and  soul,  and  strength,  looking  unto  Jesus  ; 
and  we  may  rejoice  that  not  one  shred  of  it  is  lost. 

Our  echoes  flow  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  grow  for  ever  and  for  ever. 

Moreover.)  we  are  also  freed  in  Christ  from  the  second 
source  of  this  sadness,  the  idea  that  our  knowledge 
shall  cease  to  grow.  For  in  Him  we  are  ourselves 
immortal,  and  the  work  which  we  have  started,  and 
left  to  others  here,  we  carry  on  ourselves  in  the  larger 
world  beyond.  But  if  so,  it  will  require  added  know- 
ledge, and  indeed  in  its  progress  it  will  necessarily 
store  up  knowledge.  In  Christ,  we  know  then  that 
we  shall  never  cease  to  learn,  to  investigate,  to  add  to 
our  stock  of  knowledge,  and  therefore  to  our  stock  of 
power. 

Masters  of  a  divine  hope,  we  escape  from  the  shadow 
of  this  melancholy.  We  watch  the  sands  running 
away  and  listen  to  the  passing  bell,  if  not  with  joy,  at 
least  with  a  new  growth  of  resolution  in  the  soul.  And 
in  cheerful  effort,  and  in  fortitude  of  heart,  we  pass  out 


248  ^Mdencolia! 

of  transient  sorrow  into  tlie  activity  which  exalts  the 
present  life  and  looks  forward  to  a  boundless  develop- 
ment in  the  future. 

The  second  source  of  melancholy  in  such  an  hour  of 
arrested  labour  is  retrospective  thought.  We  look  back 
from  the  position  which  our  manhood  has  reached  on 
our  youth  and  childhood.  We  see  ourselves  like  the 
tiny  genius  seated  on  the  millstone,  just  beginning  the 
career  of  learning  which  we  have  run ;  our  wings  of 
thought  and  imagination  just  starting  from  our  shoul- 
ders— with  the  eagerness  of  important  ignorance,  with 
no  shadow  of  the  coming  burden  of  weariness—  winning 
with  tablet  and  pencil  the  first  elements  of  knowledge. 
Since  then  we  have  ceaselessly  followed  our  course.  Day 
by  day  we  have  increased  in  knowledge  ;  and  what  has 
come  of  it  all — of  the  hopes  with  which  we  began,  of 
the  unclouded  weather  of  our  brain,  of  the  light 
'  which  never  was  on  sea  or  land,'  of  the  life  whose 
fountains  were  so  full,  of  the  boundless  possibilities  we 
pictured,  of  the  easy  dalliance  with  our  powers  ?  Dis- 
appointment, and  weary  thought,  and  twilight  in  the 
soul,  and  death,  the  slow  death  of  power,  and  the  ex- 
haustion of  the  force  of  faculties  by  too  rapid  an  use ; 
and  instead  of  a  boundless  range  of  view,  a  small  defined 
horizon,  and  a  voice  which  says  in  irony  to  a  soul 
doomed  never  to  be  contented,  '  Be  content  with  your 
limitations.'  Fame  has  come  to  such  a  man — the  laurel 
is  round  his  brow ;  wealth — the  purse  is  at  his  feet ; 
some  practical  power,  the  keys  of  which  are  at  his 
girdle ;  but  for  these  things  he  has  ceased  to  care  ;  for 
'  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight  of  the  unintelligible 


'Melencolia'  249 

world,'  more  weary  the  finer  our  feeling  has  been  made 
by  knowledge,  more  heavy  the  more  subtile  and  in- 
quisitive our  thought  has  been  made  by  accurate 
learnini]:,  lias  come  upon  him.  Increase  of  knowledge 
has  a^Yakencd  emotions  for  which  he  finds  no  channel, 
has  created  wants  of  the  soul  for  which  he  finds  no 
food.  He  desires  the  higher  knowledge,  because  he 
has  secured  the  lower,  and  there  is  no  Toice,  nor  any 
that  answereth. 

Then,  in  such  an  hour  of  passing  melancholy  as  wo 
speak  of,  he  envies  the  light-hearted  childhood  which 
no  question  troubled ;  he  remembers  sorrows  of  youth 
which  were  more  excellent  pleasure  than  the  joys  of 
after-life ;  the  good  old  time,  when  he  was  so  miserable. 
It  were  worth  all  his  knowledge  to  get  back  again,  even 
for  a  day,  *  the  wild  freshness  of  morning; '  the  early 
enthusiasm  which  sang  like^he  lark,  *  at  heaven's  gate.' 

It  is  still  sadder  in  such  an  hour,  if  we  look  back,  not 
at  our  own  youth,  but  at  the  children  whom  our  career 
has  inspired,  who  are  beginning  as  we  began — unwarned 
by  our  failure,  disbelieving  in  our  grief — with  the  same 
delight  and  the  same  hopes ;  delight  which  will  grow 
as  chill  as  ours,  hopes  which  will  droop  as  ours  have 
done,  and  unbelief  in  sorrow  which  will  grow  into  faith 
in  paip,  the  only  faith  which  in  our  hour  of  depression 
we  possess. 

So  whether  we  see  in  Diirer's  symbol  of  the  child- 
genius,  who  sits  near  the  great  angel  of  the  knowledge 
and  toil  of  earth,  the  image  of  her  own  youth,  or  the 
image  of  another  who  is  beginning  the  same  exhausting 
effort,  the  thought  is  still  full  of  melancholy. 


250  ''Melencolia! 

Now  what  is  the  remedy  of  this  retrospective  sadness  P 
As  long  as  this  melancholy  which  we  have  described  is 
transient,  as  Diirer  intended  it  to  be,  filling  up  a  paren- 
thesis between  labour  and  labour,  it  is  not  an  ignoble 
but  a  noble  melancholy.  For  it  is  in  reality  the  cry  of 
our  human  nature,  in  contact  with  death  and  failure, 
for  fuller  life.  It  is  the  voice  of  ouV  mightiest  and 
purest  spiritual  appetite,  making  itself  heard  through 
the  atmosphere  of  dull  decay. 

Only  it  is  mistaken  in  that  to  which  it  looks.  It  looks 
back  to  youth,  and  pictures  that  time  as  the  time  when 
life  was  richest  and  deepest.  The  spiritual  fact  is  that 
in  youth  we  had  less  life,  if  we  have  developed  ourselves 
truly,  than  we  have  now.  "We  are  now  more  complex, 
our  spiritual  and  intellectual  functions  have  a  larger 
number  of  organs  to  perform  them  ;  and  complexity  of 
being  and  specialisation  of  functions  attend  and  charac- 
terise higher  life.  We  may  have  less  careless  freshness, 
less  unsullied  purity,  less  clearness  of  vision,  but  we 
have  more  practical  power,  more  ease  in  sympathy, 
and  if  our  vision  is  less  clear  it  is  because  we  have  so 
much  more  to  observe  and  consider.  We  have  stored 
up  a  reservoir  of  force ;  we  have  taken  into  ourselves 
powers  and  new  elements  froiii  all  sides.  We  are  like 
the  great  river,  which  may  for  a  moment  regret  its 
noisy  freshness  and  its  crystal  clearness  when  it  was 
born  among  the  hills,  but  which  with  a  wiser  mind 
prefers  its  fuU-volumed  stream.  For  it  has  added  to 
its  waters  a  thousand  rivulets,  and  with  them,  tidings 
from  a  hundred  hills;* and  though  its  broad  tide  is 
stained  with  loosened  clay,  and  charged  with  decaying 


^Melcncolia!  251 

elements,  yet  it  fertilises  a  wliole  country  side,  deposits 
far  away  new  deltas  for  the  life  and  toil  of  men,  and 
bears  upon  its  bosom  the  commerce  of  the  nations. 
It  is  so  with  our  manhood's  labour,  and  the  thought 
should  place  a  heart  of  joy  in  the  midst  of  our  melan- 
choly. 

Moreover,  our  strong  crying  and  tears  in  effort  which 
has  never  reached  its  earthly  end,  our  long  and  un- 
rewarded toil  of  love  and  knowledge,  are  not  lost  in 
us.  They  are  ui  reality  latent  powers  in  the  soul, 
which  in  an  undefective  world  will  become  strength  of 
thought  and  ease  of  attainment.  As  the  forces  of  the 
sunlight  stored  up  in  the  vegetation  of  the  coal  break 
forth  again  millions  of  years  afterwards  to  cheer  a  happy 
fireside  at  Christmas  time  with  light  and  heat,  so  the 
stored-up  force  of  our  endurance  will  manifest  itself  as 
passionate  joy  under  new  conditions  of  being.  Nay, 
•we  may  even  measure  the  hidden  force  of  life  within  us 
by  the  depth  of  our  sorrow. 

Tliis  is  the  answer  we  may  give  ourselves  when  the 
increase  of  spiritual  or  mental  knowledge  has  deepened 
in  us,  in  a  transient  passage  of  melancholy,  the  pain  of 
the  contrast  between  the  hopes  of  youth  and  the  toil  of 
manhood. 

But,  if  such  a  melancholy  were  to  continue — if,  as 
some  do,  we  cherish  retrospect  and  find  our  only  plea- 
sure in  remembering  what  we  were,  in  continually 
wailing  over  dead  ideals — then  the  answer  is  sharper 
and  sterner.  It  is  given  in  the  results  which  this 
unmanly  melancholy  brings.  We  become  useless, 
dreamy,  slothful  men;    we  become  indifferent  to  the 


252  'Melencolia! 

great  interests  of  the  Present,  because  we  are  absorbed 
in  the  Past.  We  cease  to  grow,  because  we  are  isolated 
in  self;  and  he  who  ceases  to  grow  goes  back  slowly 
into  the  realm  of  nothingness  and  death.  We  are  a 
dead  weight  on  the  progress  of  the  world.  Our  idle- 
ness is  an  injury  to  the  race ;  and  the  race  rejects  and 
despises  us.  Then  our  melancholy,  face  to  face  with 
this  contempt,  changes  its  nature ;  its  dainty  sweetness 
departs,  and  is  succeeded  by  the  coarse  sourness  of  an 
old  age  of  scorn. 

That  is  the  stern  reply  of  law  to  the  man  who  indulges 
in  the  continued  melancholy  of  retrospect,  to  whom 
added  knowledge  has  only  brought  despair  of  the  future. 

It  is  unmanliness  to  linger  thus  among  the  tombs. 
Christ  calls  us  to  a  higher  thought  of  life.  Let  dead 
ideals  bury  themselves.  He  says ;  come  away  from  them 
and  follow  Me ;  there  are  other  ideals  in  front,  better 
and  larger  than  the  past.  S.  Paul  accepts  and  realises 
the  whole  position.  'When  I  was  a  child,  I  spake  as 
a  child,  I  understood  as  a  child,  I  thought  as  a  child ; 
but  when  I  became  a  man,  I  put  away  childish  things.' 
There  is  no  unmanly  retrospect  in  that,  neither  is  there 
any  depreciation  of  childhood.  It  had  its  own  ways, 
they  were  good  then — it  was  a  joyful  time,  that  too 
was  good — but  to  wish  it  back  again,  except  for  a 
moment,  were  unworthy.  Manhood  brings  nobler  work, 
higher  duties ;  and  the  child-life  and  youth  are  to  be 
put  away  for  ever.  Nor  was  this  said  by  one  who  did 
not  feel  the  weight  of  the  trouble  which  besets  manhood. 
For  he  goes  on :  '  Now  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly ' — 
'now  we  know  in  part.'     But,  observe,  the  pain  does 


^Melcncolia!  253 

not  send  him  back  for  comfort,  but  forward.  He  steps 
out  of  a  barren  melancholy,  being  the  possessor  of  an 
earnest  faith  and  a  saving  hope.  The  time  is  coming 
when  we  shall  see  face  to  face,  when  we  shall  know  as 
we  are  known:  indistinct  knowledge  which  bringeth 
sorrow,  partial  knowledge  which  itself  is  grief,  shall 
vanish  in  clear  light  of  perfect  truth,  in  completed 
knowledge,  and  clearness  and  completion  are  faultless 
joy.  It  is  the  one  inspiring  element  of  Christianity 
that  it  throws  us  in  boundless  hope  upon  the  future  and 
forbids  us  to  dwell  in  the  poisonous  shadows  of  the 
past.  A  new  and  better  growth  is  before  us,  a  fresher, 
a  diviner,  a  more  enthusiastic  life  awaits  us.  We  are 
to  wake  up  satisfied  in  the  likeness  of  Christ,  the  ever- 
young  Humanity.  Therefore,  forgetting  those  things 
which  are  behind,  let  us  press  forward  unto  the  mark 
of  the  prize  of  our  high  calling  in  Christ  Jesus. 

Lastly.  There  is  a  third  source  of  melancholy  in 
such  an  hour  of  arrested  labour  which  is  symbolised 
by  the  German  artist  and  which  illustrates  my  text. 

The  ladder,  the  geometrical  figure,  the  tools  of  the 
architect  and  the  carpenter,  lie  scattered  at  the  feet  of 
the  genius.  They  have  been  used  by  knowledge  for  the 
labour  of  men.  They  are  the  instruments  of  that  in- 
creased knowledge  whose  child  is  civilisation.  What 
have  they  done  for  the  world  ?  We  see  the  resul^  in  the 
engraving.  There  is  the  sea — a  reminiscence  of  the 
Venetian  lagoons,  and  carrying  with  it  in  the  artist's 
mind  the  'whole  idea  of  the  glory  and  wealth,  of  the 
commerce  and  civilisation  of  Venice — and  on  its  borders 
are  cities,  ports,  churches,  fortifications,  watch-towers. 


254  '  MelencoUa! 

Has  civilisation,  tlie  result  of  toil  and  knowledge, 
brought  happiness  to  men  ?  No ;  but  the  strifes  of  theo- 
logy, the  curse  and  vice  of  wealth,  wars,  and  the  anger 
of  nations,  men  preying  on  one  another,  woe  and  pain 
to  the  weak,  evil  souls  to  the  strong.  So  Albert  of 
Nuremberg,  oppressed  in  his  hour  of  thought  with  the 
misery  of  the  suffering  world,  suffering  from  its  know- 
ledge, and  the  more  it  knows,  places  over  the  citied  sea- 
board the  fiery  comet  in  the  sky,  which 

Disastrous  twilight  sheds,  and  with  fear  of  change 
Perplexes  nations, 

and  sends  the  bat  forth  to  fly  across  the  angiy  heaven 
with  the  apocalyptic  scroll  on  which  is  written  '  Melen- 
colia,'  to  cry  aloud  the  sadness  of  the  world. 

It  is  a  sorrow  which  we  all  know  in  many  a  paren- 
thesis of  meditation,  a  sorrow  which  of  all  else  is  the 
most  profound  and  the  most  consuming. 

What  is  its  remedy  ?  Some  will  tell  you  to  look  only 
on  the  bright  side  of  things,  and  to  enjoy  life,  ignoring . 
thg  evil.  Others  are  content  to  rest  in  optimism,  and 
to  believe  that  all  is  well.  But  the  real  fact  is,  that 
there  is  more  of  the  dark  side  than  the  light,  and  that 
things  are  not  well  to  us  at  all,  but  very  ill.  ISTor  is 
the  joyful  faith  in  God  which  refuses  to  see  evil  that 
temper  in  which  the  noblest  work  has  been  done,  nor 
does  ii,  in  the  end,  do  anything  for  the  world  as  long 
as  it  refuses  to  see  the  wrong  in  the  world.  It  leaves 
its  possessor  both  spiritually  and  intellectually  weak ; 
ifc  lulls  him  into  a  lotus-eating  repose  which  can  do 
nothing  to  redeem  mankind,  and  when  the  sorrow  and 
evil  of  the  world  are  forced  home,  as  they  probably  will 


'Mclencolia!  255 

be,  on  such  a  soul,  he  breaks  down  under  the  revelation, 
overwhelmed. 

The  true  remedy  is  to  penetrate  steadily  into  the  very 
depths  of  the  dreadful  mystery ;  to  comprehend  what 
destiny,  and  evil,  and '  death  mean ;  to  go  down  into 
hell  and  know  it,  and  conquer  it.  This  is  what  Christ 
did,  in  resolute  action  upon  earth,  and  out  of  this 
meeting  of  evil  and  sorrow  face  to  face,  not  by  passing 
them  by  and  ignoring  them,  sprang  his  conquest — 
evil  was  overthrown,  sorrow  was  changed  into  joy, 
death  was  swallowed  up  in  victory — ^because  He  went 
down  into  hell. 

This  is  what  S.  Paul  did  in  resolute  thought  which 
refused  to  smooth  away  a  single  difficulty  in  the  mystery 
of  God's  dealing  with  the  world.  In  chapters  ix.,  x.,  and 
xi.  of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  he  deliberately  meets 
the  dreadful  questions  of  the  apparent  unrighteousness 
and  unfairness  of  God's  dealings  with  mankind.  Their 
terror,  their  ambiguity,  their  unrelenting  march — he 
goes  down  into  the  abyss  of  them  all.  All  his  powers 
are  concentrated  into  an  unflinching  gaze  into  the 
darkness.  And  what  was  the  result  ?  It  was  the  same 
in  the  region  of  thought  as  Christ  had  arrived  at  in  the 
region  of  action.  It  was  conquest.  Listen  to  what 
came  of  brave  resolution  to  know  the  worst,  to  evade 
no  difficulty :  '  For  God  hath  concluded  them  all  in 
unbelief  that  He  might  have  mercy  upon  aU.  Oh,  the 
depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge 
of  God ;  how  nnsearchable  are  His  judgments,  and  His 
ways  past  finding  out !  for  of  Him,  and  through  Him, 
and  to  Him  are  all  things.     To  Him  be  glory  for  ever 


256  *  Melcncolta.  * 

and  ever.  Amen.'  The  whole  world  contained  and 
living  in  God.     That  was  the  answer. 

Brethren,  if  we  wish  to  win  this  conquest,  we  must 
do  in  action  and  thought  what  Christ  and  his  Apostle 
did — realise  the  evil  of  our  own  hearts  and  of  the 
world,  fully  and  entirely,  and  set  ourselves  to  meet  it, 
resolving  to  be  true  and  fearless,  to  keep  our  integrity 
and  purity,  so  far  as  possible,  clean  and  bright;  but 
not  in  avoidance  and  ignoring  of  evil  and  its  mystery, 
but  in  battle  with  it;  not  looking  too  much  to  the 
other  world,  but  living  seriously  in  this  world;  not 
seeking  too  much  for  peace  of  heart,  nor  expecting 
it,  but  in  much  tribulation  following  Christ ;  not  queru- 
lously complaining  of  intellectual  difficulties,  but  wait- 
ing and  working,  in  sad  but  resolute  faith,  towards 
light. 

I  believe  victory  comes  forth  from  that — practical 
success  in  conquering  wrong  and  setting  things  right; 
and  intellectual  power  able  to  answer  the  dreadful  mys- 
teries which  overwhelm  humanity. 

In  this  way,  the  melancholy  which  Diirer  symbolises 
does  not  induce  despair,  but  urges  to  activity.  He  seems 
to  have  felt  this.  There  is  the  light  of  coming  action 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Angel  of  the  Toil  and  Intelligence  of 
Earth.  She  has  seen  the  depths  of  sorrow  and  sin,  and 
they  can  terrify  her  mind  and  chill  her  energy  no  more. 
She  will  soon  open  the  book,  and  move  the  compasses, 
and  take  up  again  the  instruments  of  the  uncontented 
toil  of  knowledge.  Pain  may  be  increased  by  know- 
ledge, but  it  is  the  pain  of  the  travail  of  a  new  birth. 
The  insight  she  has  gained  into  evil  will  make  her  work 


*Mekncol{a!  257 

in  the  future  more  unyielding,  more  enduring.  In  the 
very  centre  of  the  dark  sorrow  she  has  caught  a  glimpse 
of  the  light  of  far-off  victory ;  and  so  above  the  bat- 
like scroll  of  melancholy,  and  the  disastrous  twilight, 
and  the  menace  of  the  comet,  the  spiritual  artist  of 
Germany  threw  the  triumphal  arch  of  the  rainbow,  the 
symbol  of  a  divine  but  distant  hope. 

The  increase  of  knowledge  includes  the  increase  of 
sorrow ;  but  the  knowledge  of  the  di^plh  of  sorrow  is 
the  gate  of  a  divine  joy. 


12 


^sS  Art  Expenditicre. 


ART  EXPENDITURE, 

•  Wliy  v.'fw  nul  iliis  ointment  sold  for  three  hundred  pence,  and  given 
U>  tlie  poor  ?  ' — John  xii.  5. 

Theee  were,  once  upon  a  time,  two  men  who  were 
friends,  but  whose  characters  and  pursuits  in  life  were 
different.  The  one  was  a  lover  of  Beauty,  the  other  a 
lover,  as  he  said,  of  Use.  The  latter  had  given  up  his 
life  to  '  practical  purposes ; '  he  had  .built  houses  for 
the  poor,  he  had  arranged  the  sanitary  measures  of  a 
city,  he  had  visited  the  prisons  and  the  hospitals,  and 
had  toiled  to  save  disease  and  crime.  And  his  cha- 
racter and  strength  were  suited  to  this  work,  so  that  he 
did  it  well. 

The  other  had  spent  his  life  in  examining  the  Beau- 
tiful ;  he  had  studied  its  laws  in  nature  and  art,  and  he 
devoted  himself  in  retirement  to  expressing  what  he 
had  discovered  in  the  most  beautiful  manner  possible  : 
his  enthusiasm  pushed  him  to  think  that  men  would 
be  interested  in  his  work,  and  his  aim  was  to  awaken 
in  the  world  the  love  of  Beauty  by  giving  a  high  and 
noble  pleasure.  He  did  not  care  to  teach  morality  as 
the  first  thing,  but  to  make  beautiful  things  familiar ; 
and  by  bringing  these  beautiful  things  before  men,  to 
refine  imaginations  not  as  yet  refined,  till  they  could 


A  rt  Expenditure,  259 

see  the  more  ideal  beauty.  This  being  his  work,  and 
his  character  and  physical  temper  being  suited  to  it, 
he  did  it  well,  and  he  did  nothing  else.  He  did  not 
visit  the  poor,  nor  was  he  seen  in  hospitals.  His  money 
was  spent  on  beautiful  things  such  as  ho  wanted  for 
his  work,  not  on  sanitary  improvements  and  model 
cottages. 

With  this  life  and  with  this  expenditure  his  friend 
became  angry.  '  What ! '  he  said,  *  will  you  make  poems 
while  famine  is  making  death  ?  The  poor  are  perishing ; 
God's  children  are  being  done  to  death ;  disease  and 
crime  are  devouring  the  nation,  and  you  sit  still  in 
your  poetic  and  artistic  leisure,  producing  only  words. 
Throw  away  all  this  useless  work,  attack  evil,  expose 
oppression,  cleryise  the  foul  dwelling,  see  and  realise 
what  poverty  and  pain  mean.  To  what  purpose  is  this 
waste  ?  These  things  which  you  call  beautiful  might  be 
sold  for  much  money,  and  given  to  the  poor.'  So  he 
spoke  in  his  dark  anger ;  and  the  spirit  of  his  friend 
was  moved,  and  he  went  forth  into  the  rude  work  of 
the  world.  It  sickened  and  dismayed  him  ;  his  poetical 
power  went  from  him;  his  faculty  for  revealing  the 
Beautiful  passed  away ;  Ms  delicacy  and  sympathy 
caused  him  to  break  down  in  contact  with  crime  and 
disease.  He  tried  hard,  but  it  was  failure ;  his  life  was 
ruined,  and  no  good  was  done.  He  could  not  do  his 
friend's  work,  and  trying  to  do  it,  he  ceased  to  be  able 
to  do  his  own. 

Now,  I  say  that  this  sort  of  thing,  so  common  now,  is 
not  only  a  pity,  but  that  a  great  wrong  is  done  to  man- 


26o  Art  Expenditure. 

kind  by  this  Judas  cry.  Each  man  has  his  own  work, 
and  it  is  a  shameful  thing,  if  any  of  us,  imagining  that 
our  peculiar  work  is  the  only  important  one,  take  ad- 
vantage of  our  greater  violence  of  character  and  drag 
away  our  friend  from  his  work  to  enlist  him  as  our 
follower.  It  is  then  that  we  should  hear  the  words  of 
Christ :  '  Let  her  alone  :  why  trouble  ye  the  woman  ? 
she  hath  wrought  a  good  work  for  Me.'  For  they  are 
the  consecration  of  those  labours  which  do  not  directly 
act  upon  the  welfare  of  men,  but  indirectly  on  it 
through  the  awakening  of  feeling ;  they  are  the  con- 
secration of  the  expenditure  of  time  and  money  upon 
things  which  kindle  in  the  heart  the  sense  of  beauty, 
and  bring  with  them  the  thoughts  which  exalt  and 
adorn  existence.  This,  with  the  thoughts  bound  up 
with  it,  is  our  subject  this  morning. 

"First.  It  is  no  wonder  that  there  are  many* who  have 
indignation  at  the  apparent  waste  of  time  upon  the  arts, 
who  demand  that  all  our  expenditure  should  be  visibly 
reproductive.  For  the  worst  sin  of  our  society  is  its 
waste  of  wealth.  Night  and  day,  while  the  commonest 
necessities  of  decent  living  are  not  placed  in  the  power 
of  those  in  want  of  them.  Dives  and  his  crew  cast  hun- 
dreds of  pounds  into  the  Thames,  and  excuse  themselves 
on  the  plea,  so  often  proved  a  false  one,  that  expenditure 
on  dress  and  luxuries  encourages  trade  and  adds  to  the 
wealth  of  the  country.  They  cannot,  and  they  will  not 
understand  that  buying  seeds  and  then  burning  them 
is  a  different  thing  from  sowing  seed  in  the  earth  which 
will  spring  up  in  thirtyfold  ears  of  corn.  It  is  no 
wonder,  I  repeat,  that  there  are  many  who,  indignant 


Art  Expenditure,    '  261 

at  this  waste,  should  call  upon  all  to  make  the  directly 
useful  the  aim  of  expenditure. 

And  utility  ought  always  to  be  the  end  of  expenditure. 

But,  is  there  only  one  utility  in  relation  to  the  wel- 
fare of  men?  Must  all  expenditure  increase  the  material 
happiness  of  man  ?  are  we  never  doing  man  good,  except 
when  we  are  providing  for  his  outward  wants  or  giving 
him  an  education  which  will  enable  him  to  get  on  in 
the  world  ?  Even  in  matters  like  food  and  dress  are 
we  forced  to  restrain  our  expenditure  to  that  which  is 
absolutely  necessary  ?  Expenditure  beyond  the  neces- 
sary on  these  things  is  certainly  unproductive,  but  is  it 
always  useless  ?  I  answer,  that  we  are  bound  not  only 
to  assist  the  poor,  but  also  to  charm  our  society,  to 
show  that  we  have  thought  of  others  by  our  desire  to 
delight  them.  Within  certain  limits,  expenditure  on 
dress  is  useful  in  producing  a  social  ease  and  charm. 
Where  it  is  entirely  neglected — in  a  household,  for 
example — it  produces  domestic  quarrels,  and  it  really 
means  not  only  carelessness  of  person,  but  carelessness 
of  pleasing. 

Expenditure  on  it  is  not  productive  of  material  good 
to  others — it  is  productive  of  another  kind  of  good 
altogether. 

Then  there  is  also  the  question  of  food.  Within 
certain  limits  some  extra  expenditure  on  providing 
a  pleasant  banquet  for  one's  friends  is  not  truly  unpro- 
ductive. It  is  a  symbol  of  our  willingness  to  please, 
of  our  desire  to  give  of  our  best  to  those  we  love  and 
honour,  and  as  such  it  rises  out  of  the  common  and 
material  into  the  spiritual.     In  both  cases  persons  may 


262  *    Art  Expenditure. 

come  to  jou  and  say,  '  Why  was  not  this  dress,  these 
wines,  sold  for  money  and  given  to  the  poor  ?'  In  both 
cases  we  may  reply  on  the  same  principle  on  which 
Christ  replied. 

But  observe — the  real  aim  in  both  these  cases  in  which 
I  have  said  that  expenditure  apparently  unproductive 
is  good,  has  been  the  desire  to  please,  the  desire  to 
express  affection,  the  desire  to  give — the  same  desires 
which  filled  the  woman's  heart  in  the  Gospel. 

Are  those  the  desires  which  guide  the  unbridled  ex- 
penditure of  society  on  food  and  dress  ?  Is  that  the 
aim  with  which  vast  sums — vast  when  one  thinks  of  the 
misery  they  might  help  to  remedy — are  uselessly  cast 
a,way  upon  luxurious  dinners  and  costly  clothing? 

Not  at  all.  Everyone  is  aware  that  the  usual  aim  is 
to  make  a  show ;  to  have  society  talking  of  our  splen- 
dour ;  to  rival  our  neighbour,  not  in  elegance  but  in  ex- 
penditure ;  to  hear  the  world  talking  of  the  great  sums 
spent  at  our  supper,  or  of  the  endless  variety  of  our 
dress.  And  on  the  whole,  is  there  a  meaner  or  more 
contemptible  ambition  in  the  world  than  this  ?  It  is 
not  the  ambition  to  make  the  world  more  beautiful, 
it  is  self-display;  it  is  not  the  ambition  to  please 
others,  it  is  the  desire  to  win  an  envious  applause  at 
the  expense  of  others,  for  half  the  pleasure  derived  is 
in  the  thought  that  others  are  left  behind  in  this  race 
of  fashionable  fame. 

Expenditure  on  food  and  Sress  for  the  sake  of  display 
is  vile  expenditure.  In  itself  it  is  coarse,  for  its  aim  is 
not  beauty,  and  it  is  unintelligent,  for  it  is  blindly 
led  by  the   fashion.     It    is,  moreover,  wicked,   for  it 


A  rt  Expenditure,  263 

is  destroying  wealth,  and  the  destruction  of  wealth  is 
theft. 

But  it  is  allowable  within  certain  limits,  when  its 
aim  is  the  giving  of  a  refined  pleasure  to  others ;  when 
it  is  a  symbol  of  love,  sympathy,  or  friendship. 

This  leads  me  directly  to  the  story  in  the  text. 
Christ,  in  a  certain  set  of  circumstances,  consecrated 
unproductive  expenditure.  A  costly  oil  was  poured 
upon  his  head.  It  expressed  the  love  of  one  who 
could  find  no  expression  of  her  love  in  words.  It  was 
the  symbol  of  a  profound  tenderness.  One  who  stood 
by  and  who  afterwards  betrayed,  put  on  indignation, 
and,  remembering  the  past  teaching  of  his  Master, 
thought  he  would  appeal  directly  to  that  teaching : 
'  Why  was  not  this  ointment  sold  for  three  hundred 
pence,  and  given  to  the  poor  ?  To  what  purpose  is  this 
waste  ? '  But  Christ  saw  that  the  woman's  heart 
needed  expression,  felt  that  the  love  not  only  made 
right,  but  glorified  the  expenditure;  saw  that  the 
scented  ointment  was  not  ointment  now,  but  had  been 
changed  into  all  the  costlier  tenderness  and  long 
regret  of  a  woman's  heart ;  and  exalting  the  act  into 
the  realm  of  the  Divine,  He  put  aside  the  mean  utility 
which  claimed  the  money  for  the  poor. 

Observe  in  this  his  largeness  of  soul.  Apparently 
He  had  contradicted  Himself.  He  had  said  to  the  young 
ruler,  '  Sell  all  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor.' 
Would  He  not  say  that  this  woman  had  done  wrong, 
especially  when  the  money  was  spent  on  Himself? 
But  Christ  lived  far  above  the  sphere  in  which  this 
objection  could  touch  his  soul.     He  did  not  care  for 


264  Art  Expenditicre, 

apparent  contradictions,  for  his  sayings  were  founded 
on  principles  -whicli  expressed  themselves  differently 
according  to  the  events  and  characters  they  met,  and 
He  knew  that  when  men  found  the  principles  they 
would  understand  that  sayings  which  seemed  contra- 
dictory were  in  reality  at  one.  And  the  principle  on 
which  his  speech  to  the  young  ruler,  and  his  address 
to  this  woman  were  made  was  this — that  all  expenditure 
should  be  for  the  welfare  of  mankind.  The  ruler  was 
to  give  to  the  poor  and  produce  material  happiness  for 
those  who  needed  it.  The  woman  had  given  to  the 
world  one  of  those  acts  which  by  the  expression  of 
profound  and  noble  feeling  produces  profound  and  noble 
feeling,  and  this  was  even  a  higher  use  of  expenditure 
than  the  other,  and  productive  of  a  purer  welfare  to  the 
race.  'Wheresoever  this  Gospel  shall  be  preached 
in  all  the  world,  this  also  which  this  woman  hath  done 
shall  be  told  as  a  memorial  of  her.'  You  cannot  imagine 
that  Christ  looked  only  to  the  fame  of  the  woman  when 
lie  said  these  words  ;  He  looked  to  the  true  and  tender 
feelings  which  her  act  would  kindle  in  the  hearts  of 
men.  He  saw  faithful  and  self-sacrificing  love — ^the 
desire  to  give  all  away  for  the  sake  of  another — glorified 
in  her  act  from  generation  to  generation,  and  He  made 
by  his  approving  voice  the  act  eternal.  Hence,  ex- 
tending the  principle,  all  expenditure  productive  of  true 
feeling  is  noble  expenditure,  is  useful,  often,  in  a  better 
way  to  man  than  if  it  had  been  given  in  mere  charity, 
or  lavished  on  promoting  the  material  comfort  of 
mankind. 

To  give  a  man  a  roof  over  his  head  is  important,  but 


A  rt  Expenditure,  265 

to  awake  his  heart,  to  feed  in  him  the  germs  of  sympathy, 
tenderness,  and  purity,  to  stir  within  hiiti  the  sleeping 
enthusiasm  for  truth,  is  still  more  important. 

To  get  a  man  on  in  the  world,  to  let  him  have  welfare 
and  peace  of  body,  is  good,  but  to  refine  his  imagination, 
to  lead  him  to  love  the  beauty  of  God's  world  and  to 
be  enthusiastic  in  his  admiration,  though  he  never  be 
able  to  express  that  enthusiasm,  is  still  more  important. 

These  are  the  works  of  the  poets  and  artists ;  for  I  do 
not  speak  now  of  the  higher  work  done  by  prophets  on 
the  religious  spirit ;  and  all  expenditure  of  any  capital 
with  these  aims  in  view,  is  noble,  though  apparently 
unproductive  expenditure.  Only  the  same  thing  applies 
to  their  work  which  applied  to  the  woman's  act.  It 
must  have  the  expression  of  fine  human  feeling  at  its 
root ;  it  must  desire  to  give  pleasure  to  men ;  it  must 
not  be  for  ostentation  or  any  selfish  end.  If  it  be  true 
to  these  aims,  we  may  say  of  it,  that  wherever  humanity 
extends,  its  influence  will  be  productive  of  good  to  men. 

There  are  those  to  whom  God  has  given  this  work 
to  do.  They  must  necessarily  withdraw  from  what  is 
called  the  practical  work  of  the  world  and  give  them- 
selves wholly  to  their  particular  business.  And  I  want 
to  say,  as  my  parable  has  hinted  at  the  beginning,  that 
all  attempts  made  by  persons  who  see  only  one  form  of 
being  useful  to  men,  to  drag  the  artists,  poets,  and  the 
rest  of  their  tribe  into  the  so-called  practical  toil  of  the 
world,  and  to  torment  them  in  their  work  by  reproaches 
and  cries  of  uselessness,  are  attempts  worthy  of  strong 
blame,  and  in  themselves  a  wicked  interference  with 
God's  division  of  labour.     Important  and  unimportant  I 


266  Art  Expenditure, 

it  is  curious  how  utterly  the  world  misapplies  these  words. 
The  work  of  a*great  poet  or  a  great  artist  is  much  more 
important  in  its  results  upon  the  whole  race  than  many 
of  those  things  to  which  history  gives  undue  pre- 
eminence. The  life  and  wars  of  Napoleon  fill  several 
volumes,  hut  their  importance  is  as  nothing  before  the 
life  and  poetry  of  Wordsworth.  Our  historians  teach 
our  children  all  about  the  battles  of  Cre9i  and  Poitiers, 
as  if  the  war  then  waged  was  not  absolutely  detrimental 
to  England;  scarcely  a  word  is  said  about  Chaucer,  and 
Wiclifife,  and  the  great  popular  movements  of  that  time. 
The  quarrels  of  kings  and  nobles  in  our  early  English 
time  fill  page  after  page.  Few  dwell  for  an  instant  on 
the  life  of  Bseda  or  the  birth  of  English  poetry  with 
Csedmon,  and  yet  the  work  of  these  two  men  outweighs 
in  real  importance  a  century  of  political  squabbles.  It 
is  practical  work  to  pass  education  bills,  and  to  carry  out 
sanitary  measures,  but  it  is  not  really  unpractical,  but 
even  more  practical,  to  influence  men  nobly  through  a 
great  picture,  or  to  kindle  their  hearts  by  a  great  poem. 
Eor  the  work  which  appeals  to  the  soul  does  not  end 
with  the  soul  it  influences  ;  it  spreads  from  the  inward 
to  the  outward,  and  the  feelings  which  are  stirred  cannot 
rest  till  they  take  life  in  action.  The  poet  opens  a  new 
world  to  men.  He  makes  an  image  of  Mankind.  He 
reveals  the  way  in  which  the  human  heart  acts  in  many 
circumstances  and  relations  of  life.  He  makes  all  his 
readers  sympathise  with  these  varied  events  and  men. 
In  this  way  the  world  of  the*reader  is  expanded.  New 
interests  are  given  to  him ;  he  sees  in  others  his  own 
human  nature ;  he  sympathises  with  persons  all  over  the 


A  rt  Expcndiiure.  267 

world.  If  he  is  poor  he  is  raade  to  feel  with  the  rich,  if 
he  is  rich  he  is  mode  to  feel  with  the  poor.  The  idea 
of  a  deep  underlying  brotherhood  takes  possession  of 
him — and  all  this  is  done  for  thousands  and  thousands, 
from  generation  to  generation.  Most  human  work 
falls  into  nothingness  before  this.  Further,  it  pro- 
motes the  outward  practical  labour  of  which  so  much 
is  said.  For  with  the  expansion  of  the  soul  comes  the 
expansion  of  the  whole  nature  of  the  man,  and  his 
awakened  and  extended  feelings  carry  him  into  active 
exertion  for  his  fellows — if  that  be  his  natural  labour. 

It  is  the  same  wifh  him  who  teaches  men  to  see  what 
is  beautiful.  Some  dare  to  look  down  upon  this  man's 
life  as  unproductive.  But  the  Press  can  tell  us  of  the 
wants  of  the  poor,  and  say  that  the  foulness  of  England 
is  a  disgrace.  It  is  only  a  few  artists  who  can  teach  us 
how  to  see  the  loveliness  of  a  mountain  line  or  the 
chord  of  colour  in  an  evening  cloud,  to  listen  with  a 
he.aring  ear  to  the  music  of  the  stream,  or  to  rejoice 
in  its  purity.  The  work  of  both  is  good,  but  the 
work  of  the  first  rivets  the  attention  of  men  on  the 
dreadful  and  deathful  elements  of  human  life,  and 
makes  the  poor  who  listen  to  it  miserable  and  indig- 
nant :  the  work  of  the  other  adds  to  the  life  of  rich  and 
poor  sweeter  thoughts  and  better  elements.  It  calls 
their  attention  to  that  which  is  pure  and  lovely,  and 
awakens  in  them  aspiration.  He  who  is  taught  to  see 
and  delight  in  the  colour  of  a  primrose  has  something 
henceforth  in  him  which  will  go  far  to  keep  him 
from  cruelty  to  his  wife;  he  who  has  been  taught  to  be 
happy  in  the  purity  of  a  meadow  ^ream  has  something 


268  Art  Expenditure, 

ever  afterwards  in  him  which,  will  make  him  loathe 
the  dirt  in  his  back-yard. 

Moreover  this  sort  ot  work  fills  the  hours  of  a  man's 
recreation  with  humanising  and  blessed  influences. 
A  man  learns  great  lessons  in  his  daily  labour,  but 
the  lessons  which  he  might  learn  in  his  hours  of  holi- 
day when  his  heart  lies  open  to  receive  that  teaching 
of  God  which  comes  without  asking,  are  often  higher 
because  more  spiritual.  But  a  certain  amount  of 
teaching  is  necessary  to  cause  men  to .  open  their  eyes 
and  to  unclose  their  heart.  Without  it,  unless  in  cases 
where  there  is  great  natural  receptiveness,  and  even  in 
these  cases  teaching  is  needed  for  right  direction  of 
observation,  the  moments  of  a  man's  rest  are  nearly 
useless  to  him.  It  is  the  blessed  work  of  the  lover 
of  beauty,  who  has  spent  money  and  time  and  given 
the  devotion  of  a  lifetime  to  gain  a  knowledge  of 
loveliness,  to  teach  men  to  see,  to  open  to  them  the 
sealed  book  of  the  Heavens  and  the  Earth,  to  unfold  to 
them  the  meaning  of  the  work  of  great  men  in  the 
arts,  to  pass  on  beyond  this  and  to  make  the  heart 
thrill  with  the  lessons  which  flow  from  the  glory  of 
God  in  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  man 
in  the  creations  of  art.  For  so  the  evening  walk  after 
toil,  the  yearly  times  set  apart  from  the  stormy  stress 
of  life,  will  be  filled  with  natural  piety  and  noble 
thought,  with  tranquillising  research  and  joy,  and  the 
whole  nature  set  a-growing  naturally  towards  things 
which  are  of  good  report  and  of  pure  beauty. 

And  it  is  the  infinite  importance  of  all  this  which 
makes  one  indignan^when  at  a  cry  of  economy  men 


An  i\.\pcnditurc,  269 

would  witlidnuv  tlio  flowers  from  the  park,  or  reduce 
the  sum  doled  out  with  reluctant  distress  by  the  State 
for  the  purchase  of  beautiful  things  or  their  preserva- 
tion. It  is  not  even  the  Judas  cry  which  we  hear,  it 
is  not  that  this  money  is  wanted  for  the  poor  :  the  poor 
speak  plainly  enough  that  they  would  rather  have  their 
flowers  than  their  worth  in  money.  But  we  spend 
thousands  in  diplomacy,  the  chief  end  of  which  appears 
to  be  not  to  settle  international  questions,  but  to 
arrange  the  quarrels  of  a  few  kings  and  queens  and  to 
sow  the  seed  of  future  wars.  No  one  complains  of  this 
expenditure,  but  every  year  a  number-  of  blind  persons 
start  up  to  object  to  a  grant  to  science  or  art.  We  put 
off  year  by  year  the  building  of  a  National  Gallery  to 
preserve  and  exhibit  usefully  priceless  treasures,  things 
which  may  speak  to  men's  hearts  when  everything  we 
are  fighting  about  with  such  ^eagerness  will  have  no 
power  to  interest  anyone;  and  we  lavish  millions  on 
preparations  for  destroying  our  fellow-creatures,  as  if 
it  were  hot  true  that  if  diplomacy  were  placed  on  a 
right  basis  and  made,  as  it  ought  to  be,  a  noble  instead 
of  a  mean  profession — international  interests  being  the 
first  instead  of  national ;  the  interest  of  the  whole  body 
of  nations  beings  felt  to  be  the  interest  of  each  ;  the 
personal  interests  of  great  personages  being  always 
placed  below  the  interests  of  mankind ;  the  desire  for  a 
free  interchange  of  all  good  things  among  nations  being  ' 
the  main  object,  so  that  peace  would  grow  out  of  the 
natural  movement  and  play  of  every  nation  in  and  with 
its  fellow,  till  Europe,  Asia,  and  America  formed  one 
closely  woven  web — as  if,  if  these  things  were  done,  we 


2 70  Art  Expenditure, 

ought  to  have  any  war  at  all.  If  even  the  fourth  part 
of  our  thirty  millions  were  let  loose  for  righteous  and 
remedial  work,  what  might  we  not  do  for  our  country  ? 
We  might  then  do  our  duty  to  the  poor  and  the  criminal 
without  hearing  the  cry  of  Judas  in  our  ears  if  we 
expended  money  on  things  which  smooth  and  ennoble 
life.  And  the  men  who  do  the  work  of  producing  and 
teaching  the  beautiful,  who  toil  apart  that  they  may 
make  new  worlds  for  us  and  kindle  creative  emotion 
in  our  hearts,  might  live  their  lives  without  being 
tortured  by  the  cries  of  starving  men  and  ruined 
women ;  without,  being  troubled  by  the  well-meaning 
but  foolish  persons  who  say  to  them :  '  Why  is  not 
your  work  sold  for  so  much,  and  given  to  the  poor  ? ' 

Yes,  we  come  back  in  the  end  to  the  other  side  of 
the  question.  I  have  pleaded  the  cause  of  the  poets 
and  the  artists  who  teach  men  to  see  and  feel  the  beau- 
tiful  in  nature  and  in  the  heart  of  man.  I  have  asked 
that  men  who  can  do  the  work  which  produces  a  price- 
less harvest  in  the  imagination  and  the  soul,  should 
be  let  alone  and  not  worried  out  of  it  by  those  who 
think  the  visibly  useful  the  only  useful.  But  if  they 
are  to  be  let  alone  and  to  retain  th%  peace  of  heart 
necessary  for  any  great  work,  we,  who  cannot  do  their 
work,  ought  to  do  that  which  they  cannot  do,  and 
which  they  would  spoil  if  they  tried.  We  ought  to 
prepare  the  way  for  their  inJluence.  Men  cannot  find 
pleasure  in  beautiful  things,  nor  feel  their  power, 
as  long  as  they  are  living  like  the  brutes.  We  ought 
to  clean  London  and  the  country ;  to  make  dwellings 
in  which  men  can  live  without  the  constant  risk  of 


A  rt  Expenditure.  2  7 1 

disease ;   to   secure  that   good  food  is  sold ;   to  have 
everywhere  pure  water  in  plenty. 

You  may  not  be  able  to  apply  yourselves  directly 
to  these  things,  and  probably  you  would  do  them  badly. 
But  there  are  many  ypung  men  among  you  who  in  one 
way  at  least  may  help  towards  work  of  this  kind.  By 
writing,  by  influence  in  and  out  of  Parliament  and  in  your 
business  relations,  you  may  work  in  many  ways  towards 
placing  international  relations  on  such  a  basis  as  will 
set,  as  I'  said,  a  large  quantity  of  our  military  and  naval 
money  free  for  practical  improvement  of  the  country's 
welfare.  The  number  who  are  doing  that  now  might 
be  counted  in  two  minutes.  I  am  sure  no  more  Chris-  * 
tian  work  than  that  can  exist,  and  if  it  is  done  heartily 
and  with  a  genuine  desire  to  help  the  race,  it  is  well- 
pleasing  to  God.  You  will  not  see  results  now ;  but 
what  is  man  worth  unless  he  has  faith  in  the  future, 
belief  in  principles,  and  sufficient  courage  to  labour 
without  always  wanting  like  a  child  to  grasp  his  result 
at  once  ? 

Ajiother  thing  we  may  do.  We  may  avoid  all 
expenditure  for  the  sake  of  show,  or  for  the  sake  of 
pushing  our  way  into  higher  circles.  We  may  deny 
ourselves  the  wretched  pleasure  of  being  pointed  at  as 
men  and  women  who  spend  more  than  others  in  food, 
and  dress,  and  luxuries.  We  may  resolve  to  waste  no 
more  money  on  things  which  have  no  intrinsic  value, 
whose  value  passes  away  in  smoke.  We  may  hate 
all  gambling,  betting,  and  all  other  ways  of  that  kind 
in  which  wealth  is  consumed,  avoiding  all  places 
where  this  unhallowed  robbery  of  the  country  is  carried 


272  Art  Expenditure, 

on.  A  few  men  and  women  in  society  who  should  mark 
their  contempt  and  hatred  of  this  waste,  with  the 
firmness  of  good  taste,  would  begin  the  formation  of 
a  strong  public  opinion  against  these  things,  and 
render  them  in  the  end  as  shameful  as  thej  are. 
That  is  one  way  at  least  of  serving  God  and  following 
Christ,  which  is  in  the  power  of  many  among  you. 

If  these  things  were  done,  a  quantity  of  capital  would 
be  set -free  which  might  be  employed  in  practical  and 
reproductive  work.  And  the  outward  and  visible  wants 
being  supplied,  there  will  be  room  for  well-educated 
expenditure  on  beautiful  things  which  have  a  lasting 
value,  and  we  may  call  upon  the  rich  to  spend  large 
sums  in  promoting  the  higher  educational  wants  of  the 
country.  I  do  not  know  what  a  man  is  a  millionaire 
for,  unless  it  is  that  he  should  undertake  great  public 
works  for  "ftie  nation.  Once  that  was  the  case  in 
England,  it  is  continually  the  case  in  America.  Here 
and  there  among  our  merchants  there  are  men  who 
found  large  libraries  and  public  institutions.  But 
one  does  not  hear  of  men  possessing  almost  fabulbus 
property  and  who  have  a  fashion  of  calling  themselves 
poor,  because  they  needlessly  support  a  number  of 
establishments,  expending,  as  they  ought  to  do,  a  year's 
income  in  the  space  of  three  or  four  years,  and  that  not 
once  but  often  in  their  lives,  on  some  great  public  work. 
It  is  our  colossal  and  hereditary  fortunes  who  ought  to 
build  the  National  Gallery,  who  ought  to  endow  science, 
who  ought  to  establish  libraries  and  art  schools  in  every 
part  of  England ;  who  ought  to  found  new  colleges  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  for  the  poorer  students;  who 


A  rt  Expenditure.  273 

ought  to  feel  that  overweening  wealth  can  only  bo 
endured  in  the  hands  of  private  persons  when  a  large 
public  use  is  made  of  it.  This  would  be  the  way  to 
make  a  noble  reputation,  to  hand  down  one's  name,  not 
as  a  by-word  for  extravagance  or  for  parsimony,  but 
blazoned  with  the  gold  of  honour  and  bright  with  the 
tears  of  gratitude. 

And  there  are  numberless  things  which  men  of  lesser 
wealth,  but  with  more  than  they  have  the  right  to 
spend  upon  themselves  and  their  estates,  may  do  which 
wiU  help  on  the  world  far  better  than  giving  of  alms. 
They  ought  to  find  out  men  who  only  want  some  help 
to  make  them  useful  to  the  world,  and  to  put  them  for- 
ward in  life.  A  few  hundreds  a  year  would  have  saved 
Keats  for  us  as  Calvert  saved  Wordsworth.  It  ought 
to  be  understood  that  money  would  be  forthcoming 
whenever  in  the  National  Schools  a  boy  rises  so  plainly 
above  his  fellows  as  to  make  it  plain  that  the  world 
would  be  the  better  for  his  liberal  education.  It  should 
be  part  of  the  duties  of  the  rich  to  search  for  such 
men.  It  should'  be  part  of  their  duty  to  buy  valuable 
things  for  the  national  collections,  and  they  ought  to  be 
educated,  as  they  are  not,  to  know  a  first-rate  thing 
when  they  see  it.  Wliy  should  public  money  be  spent 
on  a  great  picture,  when  there  are  five  hundred  men  in 
England  who  could  buy  it  and  not  know  that  they  had 
bought  it  ?  There  are  fifty  other  ways  in  which  private 
purses  can  do  public  duties,  but  I  cannot  dwell  upon 
them  now.     Let  these  things  suffice. 

And  to  conclude  all,  it  is  not  unfitting  for  a  Christian 
minister  to  say  that  the  work  of  artist  and  poet  of 


2J4  Art  Expenditure. 

which  we  have  been  speaking,  and  the  work  of  those 
who,  not  being  themselves  prophets  of  the  beautiful, 
yet  labour  to  help  those  who  are,  is,  as  well  as  that  of 
charitable  giving.  Christian  work ;  not  unpleasing  to 
the  Father  of  all  Light  and  the  King  in  His  Beauty, 
when  its  aim  is  not  private  ostentation  but  the  desire 
to  give  men  a  noble  pleasure  and  the  welfare  which 
comes  through  that.  Be  sure  that  expenditure  for  thi^-. 
purpose,  though  it  may  seem  unproductive,  is  not  un- 
productive ;  nor  will  the  Great  Judge  at  the  end  sup- 
port the  accuser  who  may  say,  like  Judas,  Why  were  not 
these  things  sold  for  much,  and  given  to  the  poor  ? 


C III  Id  Life.  275 


CHILD  LIFE. 

*  Suffer  little  children  ^<jq  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  uot:  for  of 
such  ia  ihe  Kingdom  of  God.* — Luke  xviii.  10. 

It  is  a  liappy  thought  that  the  children  who  climb  upon 
our  knees  are  fresh  from  the  hand  of  God,  living  bless- 
ings which  have  drifted  down  to  us  from  the  imperial 
palace  of  the  love  of  God,  that  they  still  hear  some  of  the 
faint  notes  of  the  music  of  God's  life,  still  bear  upon 
their  faces  traces  of  the  uncreated  light.  Heathen  sage 
and  Christian  poet  have  enshrined  the  thought,  each 
according  to  his  knowledge,  and  though  there  is  no 
l)roof  of  its  truth,  yet  we  cannot  neglect  as  quite 
fruitless  in  wisdom  so  wide-spread  an  intuition.  It  is 
vain  to  sneer  at  it  as  poetry,  in  vain  at  least  for  some 
of  us.  He  cannot  scorn  this  thought  who  feels,  as  his 
children's  faces  light  up  at  his  coming,  not  pleasure 
only,  but  an  inner  sense  of  gratitude  that  things  so  pure, 
so  close  to  God,  should  give  to  him,  with  the  sense  of 
his  unworthiness  deep  within,  so  much  and  so  unsus- 
pectingly. Their  trust  seems  to  carry  with  it  something 
of  the  forgiveness  of  Heaven.  The  man  sees  the  tole- 
rant tenderness  of  God  his  Father  in  the  child  whom 
He  has  sent  him — that  his  little  one  believes  in  him, 
bestows  on  him  the  blessing  of  an  ever-renewed  hop«, 

I 


276  Child  Life. 

Kor  can  he  scorn  this  thought  who  on  philosophic 
grounds  believes  that  all  living  beings  are  held  in  Godj 
are  manifestations  of  part  of  the  Divine  thought.  He 
knows  that  a  phase  of  that  idea  which  God  has  of  the 
whole  race  is  iocarnate  in  his  child,  that  his  child  is 
destined  to  reveal  it,  that  this  is  the  purpose  for  which 
God  sent  it  into  the  world.  Therefore  hidden  within 
this  speck  of  mankind  he  recognises  a  germ  of  the 
Divine  essence  which  is  to  grow  into  the  harvest  of 
an  active  life,  with  a  distinct  difference  from  other 
lives. 

And  if,  born  of  these  two  thoughts,  a  sadness  succeeds 
the  first  touch  of  joy  and  gratitude,  when  the  parents 
think  how  soon  the  inevitable  cloud  of  life  will  make  dim 
the  heavenly  light ;  how  long,  how  evil,  may  be  the  days 
of  their  child's  pilgrimage ;  how  far  he  may  retreat  from 
God — yet,  we  who  believe,  not  in  a  capricious  idol  of 
power,  but  in  a  just  Father  who  loves — we  who  hold 
that  there  is  nothing  which  is  not  in  God,  cannot  dis- 
trust the  end.  Our  children  are  in  His  hands;  they 
will  some  time  or  other  fulfil  the  work  of  revealing  God; 
they  must,  for  God  does  not  let  one  of  His  thoughts  fail. 
If  all  life  be  in  God,  no  life  ever  gets  loose  from  God ;  it 
is  an  absolute  imperative  of  the  philosophy  which  denies 
that  anything  can  be  which  is  not  of  God,  that  nothing 
can  ever  finally  divide  itself  from  Him.  Our  children, 
like  ourselves,  are  already  saved  by  right.  Years  of 
what  we  call  time  will  be  needed  to  educate  them  into 
union  with  God  in  fact,  but  that  end  is  as  certain,  if 
God  exist,  as  God's  existence. 

This  thought  of  what  I  may  call  the  divinity  of  child- 


Child  Life,  277 

liood  is  still  further  supported  by  the  exquisite  relation 
in  which  Christ  put  Himself  to  children.  The  heart 
of  woman  will  never  forget  that  beautiful  wayside 
story  where  He  consecrated  the  passion  of  motherhood. 
The  religious  spirit  will  never  cease,  when  disturbed 
by  the  disputes  of  the  worldlier  life,  to  remember  his 
words  when,  bringing  the  disciples  back  to  the  sweet- 
ness of  early  charity,  He  took  a  child  and  placed  it  in 
their  midst.  The  soul  distressed  with  questions  of  belief 
remembers  with  a  touch  of  peaceful  pleasure  how  Christ 
recalled  his  people  to  the  natural  simplicity  of  faith,  to 
that  higher  and  deeper  religion  which  lives  beyond  the 
wars  of  the  understanding,  when  He  said,  *  Whoso  shall 
receive  one  such  little  child  in  My  name  receiveth  Me.' 

And  when  mistaken  religious  persons  press  hard  upon 
the  truth  and  tenderness  of  the  relation  of  parents  to 
children,  and  bid  the  one  look  upon  the  other  as  children 
of  the  devil  —  corrupting  with  their  poison  the  sweetest 
source  of  feeling  in  the  world  and  the  love  which  of  all 
human  love  links  us  closest  to  the  heart  of  God,  we 
fall  back  in  indignant  delight  upon  the  words  of  the 
Saviour :  *  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these 
little  ones ;  for  I  say  unto  you,  that  in  heaven  their 
angels  do  always  behold  the  face  of  My  Father  which 
is  in  heaven.' 

And  once  more,  when  we  think  that  God  revealed  Him- 
self in  the  childhood  of  the  Saviour,  the  thought  of  the 
divinity  of  childhood  becomes  still  more  real.  To  us 
it  is  mucli,  in  our  stormy  and  sorrowful  life,  to  think 
of  Christ  in  his  manhood  conquering  and  being  made 
perfect  through  suffering;  but  when  we  wish  to  escapa 


278  Child  Life. 

into  a  calmer,  purer  air,  we  turn  from  the  image  of  our 
Master  as  '  the  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with 
grief,'  dear  as  that  is  to  us,  and  look  with  infinite 
pleasure  on  the  earlier  days  at  Nazareth,  imagine  Him 
playing  in  the  meadow  and  rejoicing  in  the  sunlight  and 
the  flowers,  taking  his  mother's  kiss,  and  growing  in 
the  peace  of  love — and  so  learn  to  dream  of  God,  re- 
vealed not  only  as  the  Eternal  Father,  but,  in  some  not 
unworthy  sense,  as  also  the  Eternal  Child. 

It  is  a  thought  which  bathes  all  our  children  in  a 
divine  light.  They  live  for  us  in  the  childhood  of 
Christ ;  they  move  for  us  and  have  their  being  in  the 
childhood  of  God. 

In  the  directest  opposition  to  all  this — to  the  poetic  in- 
stinct of  Greek  and  Christian  poetry  and  philosophy,  to 
the  natural  instincts  of  the  human  heart,  to  the  teaching 
and  acts  of  Christ,  to  the  revelation  of  God  in  childhood 
— is  the  dreadful  explanation  which  some  have  given  of 
original  sin.  Children  are  born,  we  are  told,  with  the 
consummate  audacity  of  theological  logic,  under  the 
moral  wrath  of  God,  are  born  children  of  the  devil.  ^  I 
have  already  denied  this  from  this  place,  and  stated  in- 
stead of  it  the  fact — that  we  are  born  with  a  defective 
nature  which  may  and  does  lead  to  moral  fault,  but  in 
itself  it  is  no  more  immoral  than  colour-blindness.  I 
have  said  that  this  imperfectness  is  the  essential  differ- 
ence of  human  nature,  that  which  makes  man  differ 
from  God,  from  angels,  from  brutes ;  that  which  makes 
him,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  only  being  in  the  universe 
capable  of  progress.  It  is  a  defectiveness  distinctly 
contemplated,  distinctly  initiated  by  God,  who  wished 


CJiildLife,  279 

for  a  being  in  His  universe  the  history  of  >vhich  should 
be  the  attainment  of  perfectness  through  struggle 
against  defectiveness.  As  such,  the  defectiveness  of  our 
children,  as  well  as  our  own,  has  in  it  a  thought  which 
glorifies  it.  We  see  in  its  first  developments,  and  in 
the  way  in  which  the  spiritual  element  meets  it,  the 
beginning  of  that  noble  struggle  in  which  the  soul  will 
have  the  glory  and  pleasure  of  advance,  the  delight  of 
conquest  as  well  as  the  misery  of  failure ;  the  interest 
of  a  great  drama,  and  the  final  resurrection  into  freedom 
from  weakness,  error,  and  restraint. 

Whatever  way  we  look,  then,  upon  our  children,  our 
first  feeling  should  be  reverence  for  the  divine  within 
them,  infinite  desire  to  help  them  to  recognise  that 
divine  idea,  and  to  express  it  through  life,  in  a  noble 
form.  This  should  be  the  basis  of  education.  If  it 
were,  we  should  have  less  bad  men  and  bad  women. 

For  we  should  remember  that  children  on  whom  we 
can  make  almost  any  impression  we  please,  so  ductile  is 
their  wax,  will  become  what  they  are  believed  to  be,  will 
reverence  their  own  nature  when  they  feel  that  it  is 
reverenced,  will  believe  that  they  are  of  God,  and  know 
and  love  Him  naturally  when  they  are  told  that  God  is 
in  them. 

But  the  other  basis  of  education  has  an  irresistible 
tendency  to  degrade  them,  and  it  only  shows  how  near 
they  are  to  God  that  it  does  not  degrade  them  more. 
What  coivceivable  theory  is  more  likely  to  make  them 
false,  untrustful,  cunning,  ugly-natured,  than  that  which 
calls  them  children  of  the  devil,  and  acts  as  if  the  one 
object  of  education  was,  not  to  develope  the  God  within 


28o  Child  Life, 

them,  but  to  lash  the  devil  out  of  them  ?  Let  tliem 
think  that  you  believe  them  to  be  radically  evil,  and 
the  consequences  be  on  your  own  head.  You  will 
make  them  all  you  think  them  to  be.  Every  punish- 
ment will  make  them  more  untrue,  more  fearful,  more 
cunning ;  and  instead  of  day  by  day  having  to  remit 
punishment,  you  will  have  to  double  it  and  treble  it, 
and  at  last,  end  by  giving  it  up  altogether  in  despair,  or 
by  making  your  child  a  sullen  machine  of  obedience. 

Instead  of  trusting  your  child,  you  will  live  in  an 
atmosphere  of  constant  suspicion  of  him,  alwa^^s  think- 
ing that  he  is  concealing  something  from  you,  till  you 
teach  him  concealment  and  put  lies  in  his  mouth  and 
accustom  him  to  the  look  and  thought  of  sin  ;  and 
then — having  done  this  devilish  work  and  turned  the 
brightness  and  sweetness  of  childhood  into  gloom  and 
bitterness,  and  having  trodden  into  hardened  earth  the 
divine  germs  in  his  heart — what  happens  ?  You  send 
him  into  the  world  already  a  ruined  character,  taught 
through  you  to  live  without  God  in  his  soul,  without 
God  in  the  world,  to  believe  in  evil  and  not  in  good. 

Do  not  complain  afterwards  if  he  disappoint  you,  if 
he  turn  out  a  cruel  or  a  dishonourable,  or  a  miserable 
man.  It  is  you  who  have  made  him  so,  and  God  will 
have  a  dreadful  reckoning  with  you.  *  I  mistook,'  you 
will  say,  as  you  tremble  before  His  judgment-seat ;  '  I 
did  it  for  the  best.'  Alas  !  there  will  be  no  possible 
excuse  for  you,  but  this,  which  links  you.  with  the 
slayers  of  Christ,  Father,  forgive  me,  for  I  knew  not 
what  I  did.' 

Teach  your  child  to  believe  in  the  goodness  of  his 


Child  Life.  281 

nature,  in  his  nearness  to  God.  And  this  leads  me  to 
the  first  characteristic  of  childhood,  faith ;  faith,  the 
quality  whose  outward  form  is  trust. 

It  speaks  well  for  the  beauty  of  the  human  quality 
of  faith  that  it  is  so  lovely  a  thing  to  us  when  we  see  it 
pure  in  childhood.  No  pleasure  is  so  great  as  that 
which  we  receive  when,  in  their  hours  of  joy,  still  more 
when  sorrow  or  disease  attack  them,  we  see  the  light  of 
our  children's  faith  in  us  shining  in  their  eyes. 

It  speaks  well  for  the  spiritual  power  of  this  quality 
that  it  has  on  us  such  winning  force.  We  grant  to  it 
as  we  recognise  it,  what  we  should  grant  to  nothing 
else — we  cannot  hold  back  from  its  often  mute  request 
anything  which  is  not  wrong  for  us  to  give.  It  over- 
comes the  world  in  us :  it  leads  us  to  make  a  thousand 
sacrifices.  It  charms  our  weary  life,  it  attracts  and 
softens  our  sated  heart.  It  makes  us  feel  our  own 
relation  to  God,  and  what  it  should  be,  for  it  is  its  earthly 
image.  The  parents  who  have  not  encouraged  and  loved 
this  quality  in  children  towards  themselves,  will  have 
but  little  of  it  in  their  own  relation  to  God.  They  will 
give  no  pleasure  to  the  Divine  Father,  they  will  have 
no  natural  power  with  Him. 

Having  this  faith,  the  child  is,  as  long  as  it  is  un- 
spoilt by  us,  fearless,  and  fearless  under  the  difficulties 
of  a  vivid  imagination,  not  the  high  imagination  which 
composes  images  towards  an  artistic  end,  but  the  un- 
tutored quality  which  works  without  an  impulse  or  an 
aim.  On  the  child's  receptive  heart  everything  makes 
a  strong  impression,  numberless  images  are  received. 
And  at  night,  when  no  new  impressions  are  made  by 

18 


282  Child  Life, 

outward  objects,  these  images  rise  up  a  thronging  crowd 
in  the  brain.  And  the  work  of  the  brain,  just  beginning 
to  learn  itself,  and  as  yet  under  no  ordinance  of  the 
will,  composes,  combines,  contrasts  these  images  into  a 
thousand  fantastic  forms. 

Spoil  the  child's  faith  in  the  world  being  good  to  it 
and  pleasant ;  frighten  it  with  falsehoods  to  keep  it 
quiet,  tell  it  a  single  lie,  and  let  it  lose  a  grain  of  its 
divine  trust  in  you ;  show  yourself  violent,  unreasonable, 
harsh,  or  cruel,  and  every  one  of  these  images  may  take 
a  frightful  form.  What  it  has  suffered  from  you,  the 
distrust  it  has  gained  from  you,  will  creep  like  a  subtile 
element  of  fear  into  the  creations  of  its  fancy,  and 
terror  is  bom  in  its  heart. 

Again,  this  unquestioning  faith  makes  the  child  think 
that  ■  everything  is  possible,  and  as  many  things  are 
possible  which  the  fear  which  reasons  deters  us  from 
attempting,  the  child  often  does  feats  which  astonish 
us.  So  nations  in  their  childhood,  and  men  inspired 
by  intense  faith,  have  believed  in  themselves  and  done 
things  called  miraculous. 

It  is  unwise  to  attack  too  rudely  even  this  self-con- 
fidence of  childhood.  Lessen  the  child's  faith  in  his 
own  powers,  and  you  will  check  the  growth  of  that 
happy  audacity  which  in  boyhood  and  youth  wins  after- 
wards so  much — that  easy  daring  and  self-confidence 
which,  when  it  is  limited  by  good  manners,  is  so  charm- 
ing in  society. 

Nature  herself  will  teach  him  humility  soon  enough, 
and  you  had  better  let  him  find  out  his  limits  in  this 
direction  for  himself     She  has  a  way  of  teaching  which 


Child  Life.  283 

is  irresistible ;  wLich,  though  it  stops  audacity  with  firm- 
ness, yet  shows  that  she  is  pleased  with  the  audacity ; 
which  points  out  a  way  of  conquering  herself.  And  in 
the  child's  relation  to  his  home  and  society,  you  yourself 
can  check  the  fearless  self-confidence  when  it  degene- 
rates into  impertinence  or  thoughtlessness,  not  by  harsh 
rebuke,  but  by  appealing  to  the  natural  impulse  of 
affection.  The  limit  placed  by  saying  and  enforcing  this 
— *  Do  nothing,  my  child,  say  nothing,  which  will  give 
pain  to  others ' — is  not  a  limit  which  will  crush  the 
natural  boldness  of  the  heart.  It  is  a  limit  which 
appeals  to  love,  and  the  desire  to  be  loved  is  an  ele- 
ment in  the  child's  nature  as  strong  as  faith.  It  will 
be  seen  to  be  natural  and  reasonable,  it  will  be  ac- 
cepted. 

Again,  as  to  this  faith  in  its  relation  to  God,  how 
does  it  take  a  religious  form?  The  child's  religious 
faith  is,  first,  faith  in  you — mother,  father,  guardian  ;  to 
early  childhood  you  are  God.  And  when  you  come  to 
give  a  name  to  the  dim  vision  of  the  growing  child,  and 
call  it  God,  it  will  grow  into  form  before  him,  clothed 
with  your  attributes,  having  your  character.  If  the 
child  learn  to  worship  an  idol — a  jealous,  capricious, 
passionate  God — it  is  not  his  fault  half  so  much  as  yours. 
What  were  you  to  him  when  he  was  young  ?  Were  you 
violent,  sulky,  eaicting,  suspicious,  ruling  by  force  and 
iiot'by  love?  Whatever  you  were,  his  God  in  boyhood 
will  wear  your  shape  and  bear  your  character,  and  he 
will  grow  like  the  character  he  contemplates.  As  he 
grows  older,  he  needs  more  direct  teaching.  He  asks 
who  is  God,  what  is  His  character,  what  His  will.  For  ho 


284  Child  Life> 

cannot  but  desire  to  know  these  things,  through  a  vague 
curiosity,  if  through  nothing  more.  For  by  and  by,  God 
touches  him.  Spiritual  impulses,  slight,  but  distinct, 
come  to  him  in  hours  of  temptation ;  voices  make  them- 
selves heard  in  his  heart ;  passion  renders  life  exalted, 
and  in  the  more  wakeful  state  it  genders,  the  germs  of 
spiritual  life  push  forth ;  nature  speaks  her  dim  message 
ia  some  lonely  moment  on  the  hills  or  in  the  wood,  and 
he  is  conscious  of  an  undefined  want.  What  has  he  to 
fall  back  on  then?  What  ideas  have  you  given  him  to 
which  he  may  now  fly  for  solution  of  the  growing  pro- 
blem ?  what  forms  of  thought  which  the  new  powers 
of  spiritual  faith  and  love  may  breathe  upon  and  make 
a  living  God  ?  The  whole  spiritual  future  of  his  youth 
then  trembles  in  the  balance.  Fathers  and  mothers,  you 
do  not  know  often  what  you  are  doing ;  what  misery, 
what  bitterness,  what  hardness  of  heart,  what  a  terrible 
struggle,  or  what  a  hopeless  surrender  of  the  whole 
question  you  have  prepared  for  your  child  by  the  dismal 
theology  and  the  dreadful  God,  and  the  dull  heaven, 
which  you  have  poured  into  the  ear  of  childhood. 
Long,  long  are  the  years,  before  the  man  whose  early 
years  have  been  so  darkened  can  get  out  of  the  deadly 
atmosphere  into  a  clear  air,  and  see  the  unclouded  face 
of  God. 

So  far  for  the  faith  of  childhood ;  on  its  love  I  need 
not  dwell,  the  same  things  apply  to  it  as  apply  to  faith ; 
but  on  its  joy  fulness  and  the  things  connected  there- 
with we  speak  as  we  draw  to  a  conclusion. 

The  child's  joy  comes  chiefly  from  his  fresh  recep- 
tiveness.     His  heart  is  open  to  all  impressions  as  the 


C laid  Life,  285 

bosom  of  the  eartli  is  to  the  heavenly  airs  and  lights. 
Nothing  interferes  to  break  the  tide  of  impressions 
which  roll  in  wave  on  wave — no  brooding  on  the  past, 
no  weary  anticipations  of  the  future.  H6  lives,  like 
God,  in  an  eternal  present.  The  world  is  wonderful  to 
him,  not  in  the  sense  of  awaking  doubts  or  problems, 
but  as  giving  every  moment  some  miraculous  and  vivid 
pleasure,  and  it  is  pleasure  in  the  simplest  things. 
His  father's  morning  kindness  makes  him  thrill ;  his 
food  is  to  him  the  apples  of  paradise.  The  sunlight 
sleeping  on  the  grass,  the  first  fall  of  snow  in  winter, 
the  daisy  stars  he  strings  upon  the  meadow,  the  fish 
leaping  in  the  stream,  the  warm  air  which  caresses  his 
cheek,  the  passing  of  the  great  waggon  in  the  street,  the 
swallows'  nest  above  his  bedroom  window,  the  hour  of 
rest  Irt  night,  and  his  prayer  at  his  mother's  knee — 
aU  are  loved  lightly  and  felt  keenly,  and  touch  him 
with  a  poetic  pleasure.  And  each  impression,  as  it  comes, 
is  clothed  in  simple  words — words  which  often,  in  their 
spontaneousness,  their  fearless  unconsciousness,  their 
popular  quality,  their  fitness  for  music,  have  something 
of  a  Ijrric  note,  something  of  the  nature  of  a  perfect 
song.  For  the  child  lives  in  a  world  of  unconscious 
art.  He  is  fearless  in  his  delight,  and  when  he  is 
happy  he  trusts  his  own  instincts  as  revelations :  and 
if  we  could  get  back  in  after-life  something  of  this,  we 
should  all  be  artists  in  heart.  One  knows  in  the  highest 
genius  that,  united  with  manhood's  trained  power  of 
expression,  there  is  an  eternal  element  of  childhood. 
Take,  for  example,  the  perfect  song,  such  as  the  songs 
of  Shakespeare  were.    They  were  spontaneous,  sudden. 


2  86  Child  Life, 

popular,  simple,  and  able  to  be  sung.  But  above  all, 
they  derive  their  magic  and  v\^inning  power  from  the 
poet's  fearlessness,  from  his  trust  in,  and  Ids  delight  in 
his  instinctive  emotions.  The  songs  of  other  poets  are 
spoiled  by  their  fear  of  their  simplicity  being  called 
absurd  by  the  public,  by  that  doubt  whether  the  thing 
is  quite  right,  that  thinking  about  thought,  that  shy- 
ness of  one's  own  feeling  which  come  from  want  of 
that  unconscious  trust  in  his  rightness  and  delight  in  it 
which  a  child  possesses.  The  kingdom  of  a  perfect 
song,  the  kingdom  of  a  perfect  work  of  art,  is  like  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  one  must  enter  it  like  a  little 
child. 

'  Fostered  alike  by  beauty  and  by  fear,'  fear  which 
has  its  thrill  of  joy,  the  child  grows  into  union  with  the 
world,  and  into  consciousness  of  his  own  heaiT,  till 
'  the  characters  of  danger  and  desire '  are  impressed 
upon  all  outward  forms,  and  day  by  day  more  vividly 
that  great  enjoyment  swells  which  makes 

The  surface  of  the  universal  earth 

With  triumph  and  delight,  with  hope  and  fear, 

"Work  like  a  sea. 

And  in  quieter  moments,  calmer  pleasures  are  his — plea- 
sures of  love  given  and  received,  pleasures  of  childish 
friendship,  pleasures  of  first  successes  in  learning  and 
in  new  pursuits,  j)leasures  of  obscure  feelings  just 
touched,  not  understood,  which  make  in  after-life 

Those  recollected  hours  that  have  the  charm 

Of  visionary  things,  those  lovely  forms 

And  sweet  sensations  which  throw  back  our  life, 

And  almost  make  remotest  infancy 

A  visible  scene,  on  which  the  sun  is  shining. 


Child  Life,  287 

We  look  back  on  tliem  with  reflection,  but  there  was 
no  reflection,  or  but  little,  then ;  the  Ufe  was  natural, 
uuthoughtful,  only  now  and  then,  amid  the  full  move- 
ment of  unconscious  pleasure,  flashes  of  deeper  thought 
axose  and  passed  away,  a  fiiint  touch  of  something  to 
come,  a  weight  within  the  pleasure,  a  dim  sense  of 
sublimity  or  calm,  a  suspicion  of  what  duty  meant, 
just  came  and  were  forgotten,  but  did  not  die.  They 
went  to  form  the  heart,  to  build  up  that  which  was  to 
become  the  man,  and  they  arose  afterwards  i!i  maturer 
life  to  impregnate  and  to  elevate  the  mind. 

We  spoil  all  this  divine  teaching  of  God  and  nature 
by  forcing  the  child  out  of  his  unconsciousness  into 
self-consciousness,  by  demanding  of  him  reflection, 
by  checking  the  joy  of  his  receptiveness  by  too  much 
teaching,  too  much  forcing.  Let  him  remain  for  a 
time  ignorant  of  himself,  and  abide  in  his  heavenly 
Father's  hands;  let  him  live  naturally,  and  drink 
in  his  wisdom  and  his  religion  from  the  influences 
which  God  makes  play  around  him.  Above  all,  do 
not  demand  of  him,  as  many  do,  convictions  of  sin, 
nor  make  him  false  and  hysterical  by  calling  out  from 
his  imitative  nature  deep  spiritual  experiences  which 
he  cannot  truly  feel.  Let  him  begin  with  natural 
religion,  leave  him  his  early  joy  untainted,  see  that  he 
knows  God  as  love  and  beauty  and  sympathy.  It  is 
horrible  to  anticipate  for  him  the  days,  soon  enough 
to  come,  when  sorrow  and  sin  will  make  of  life  a 
battle,  where  victory  can  only  be  bought  by  pain. 

But  if  we  keep  these  early  days  pure  and  joyful,  fiill 
of  the  blessedness  of  uninjured  faith  and  unconscious 


288  Child  Life, 

love,  we  give  to  tlie  man  tliat  to  which  he  can  always  look 
back  with  hope,  and  use  for  the  kindling  of  effort  and 
aspiration.  For  the  dim  remembrance  of  their  pure 
and  powerful  pleasure,  the  divinity  within  them,  have 
virtue  to  recall  us  in  after-life,  when  high  feeling  is 
dulled  with  the  cares  of  this  world,  to  loftier  and  better 
thoughts ;  to  nourish  and  repair  imagination  when  its 
edge  is  blunted  by  distress  and  doubt;  to  exalt  the 
soul  with  hope,  that  though  innocence  is  lost,  yet  good- 
ness remafhs  to  be  won ;  to  tell  us,  in  the  midst  of  the 
transient  and  the  perishable,  that  our  life  is  hidden  in 
God,  and  our  spirit  at  home  in  immortality. 

It  is  true  that  inimitable  innocence  and  fearlessness, 
that  perfect  trust,  that  belief  that  nothing  is  impos- 
sible, that  fresh  and  honest  freedom,  that  divine  joy, 
cannot  be  the  blessing  of  the  man.  He  has  been  driven 
out  of  Eden,  and  the  swords  wave  for  ever  over  the  gate 
and  forbid  return.  Bat  there  is  a  nobler  paradise 
before  us,  the  paradise  of  the  soldier  spirit  which  has 
fought  with  Christ  against  the  evil,  and  finished  the 
work  which  the  Father  has  given  him  to  do.  There  the 
spirit  of  the  child  shall  be  mingled  with  the  power  of  the 
man,  and  we  shall  once  more,  but  now  with  ennobled 
passion  and  educated  energies,  sing  the  songs  of  the 
fearless  land,  children  of  God,  and  men  in  Christ. 

It  is  true  that,  tossed  with  doubt,  and  confused  with 
thoughts  which  go  near  to  mastering  the  will,  we  are 
tempted  to  look  back  with  wild  regret  to  the  days, 
when  children,  we  dreamt  so  happily  of  God,  and  lived 
in  a  quaint  and  quiet  heaven  of  our  own  fanciful  crea- 
tion, and  took  our  dreams  for  realities,  and  were  happy 


Child  Life.  289 

in  our  belief.  But  after  all,  though  the  simple  religion 
is  lost,  its  being  now  more  complex  does  not  make  it  less 
divine ;  our  faith  is  more  tried,  but  it  is  stronger ;  our 
feelings  are  less  easily  moved,  but  they  are  deeper; 
our  love  of  God  is  less  innocent,  but  how  much  more 
profound  ;  our  life  is  not  so  bright  in  the  present,  but 
its  future  is  glorious  in  our  eyes.  We  are  men  who 
know  that  we  shall  be  made  partakers  of  the  child's 
heart  towards  our  Father,  united  with  the  awe  and  love 
and  experience  of  the  man.  And  then,  through  death, 
again  we  enter  the  imperial  palace  whence  we  came. 
We  hear  the  songs  and  voices  which  of  old  we  heard 
before  we  left  our  home,  but  we  hear  them  now  with 
fuller,  more  manly  comprehension ;  we  see  again  the 
things  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  but  our  vision  pierces 
deeper.  We  worship  God  with  the  delight  of  old,  before 
we  went  upon  our  Wander- Year,  but  the  joy  is  more 
stately,  for  it  is  now  the  joy  of  sacrifice  ;  and  all  things 
now  are  new  to  us,  for  we  have  grown  into  men,  and 
we  feel  the  power  and  joy  of  progress.  But  never,  as 
we  look  to  Him  who  led  us  all  our  life  long  until  this 
day,  shall  we  lose  the  feeling  of  the  child.  Through 
all  eternity  the  blessing  of  the  child's  heart  shall  be 
ours.  In  the  midst  of  our  swiftest  work,  in  the  midst 
of  our  closest  pursuit  of  new  knowledge,  in  the,  midst 
of  aU  the  endless  labour  and  sacrifice  of  the  heavenly 
life,  we  shall  always  turn  with  the  sense  of  infinite 
peace  to  God,  and  say.  Our  Father,  suffer  a  little  child 
to  come  to  Thee. 


290  Yoiilky  and  its  Questions  To-day. 


[Jan.  1870.] 

YOUTH,  AND  ITS  QUESTIONS  TO-DAY. 

*  Lo,  I  am  -witli  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.' 
Matt,  xxviii.  20. 

There  are  pictures  which,  to  the  very  close  of  the 
artist's  work,  want  a  magic  touch  to  make  them  perfect 
— one  point  of  light,  one  spark  of  brilliant  colour.  At 
last  the  hour  comes  when  all  is  finished  but  this.  Its 
addition  is  not  an  after-thought ;  one  might  say  that 
the  picture  had  been  painted  with  the  intention  of  it 
in  the  creator's  mind.  He  adds  it ;  it  is  bat  a  touch, 
but  it  transfigures  and  completes  the  work. 

Such  a  touch  of  finish  is  my  text.  All  has  been  told 
of  the  Saviour's  work — the  lowly  birth,  the  quiet  ripen- 
ing years  of  youth,  the  entrance  into  the  ministry,  the 
redeeming,  revealing  ministry  itself,  the  founding  of 
the  kingdom,  the  sacrificial  death,  the  resurrection,  the 
passing  into  glory,  the  mission  of  the  disciples  to  the 
whole  .world — and  yet  the  picture  is  incomplete.  '  Of 
what  use,'  we  say,  'is  all  this,  if  the  revealer  of  God 
and  the  Saviour  of  men  is  gone  away  from  his  work 
and  left  it-  in  our  feeble  human  hands  ?  What  beauty 
is  there  in  a  work  which  must  perish,  unsupported  by 
the  spirit  of  its  author?  The  thing  is  incomplete.' 
At  the  very  moment  tint  we  say  this,  as  we  read  the 


Youth,  and  its  Questions  To-day,  29 1 

gospel,  Christ  turns  and  adds  tlie  perfecting  conception  : 
*  Lo,  I  am  with  yon  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
Avorld.' 

*  The  end  of  the  world  I ' — what  does  it  mean  ?  Lite- 
rally, the  conclusion  of  the  age,  of  this  present  time- 
world.  There  have  been  many  theories  with  regard 
to  the  manner  in  which  this  conclusion  will  take  place. 
But  bound  up  with  them  all  and  almost  up  to  the 
present  day,  one  idea  has  been  constant — the  idea  of 
a  terrible  catastrophe,  in  which  the  whole  frame  of 
things,  with  cities,  nations,  men,  shall  be  dissolved  in  a 
fiery  ruin,  that  out  of  the  dissolution  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth  may  be  upraised. 

So  constant  and  unquestioned  was  this  idea,  that 
it  had  an  insensible  influence  on  scientific  theories, 
and  tlie  earlier  geologists  transferred  to  the  past 
history  of  the  globe  the  idea  of  catastrophes.  It  was 
said  that  each  new  series  of  life  and  strata  had  been 
ushered  in  by  the  total  overthrow  of  the  preceding. 

Historians  shared  in  the  same  thought.  States  and 
their  work,  to  theoretical  eyes,  seemed  to  be  absolutely 
swept  away.  Assyria,  Greece,  Eome,  perished  and 
left  no  trace.  Catastrophe,  convulsion,  almost  anni- 
hilation, marked,  they  said,  the  history  of  earth  and 
the  history  of  man,  and  the  theologians  appealed  in 
triumph  to  this  as  confirming  their  theory  of  the  close 
of  the  world ;  unaware,  apparently,  that  it  was  their 
own  idea,  with  which  they  had  prejudiced  the  world, 
coming  back  to  them  again. 

But,  within  the  last  thirty  years,  an  immense  change 


292  Youths  audits  Questions  To-day. 

has  taken  place — a  cliaiige  of  idea  which  has  spread 
itself  over  nearly  all  the  realms  of  human  thought. 
The  idea  of  uniform  evolution  has  succeeded  the  idea 
of  violent  catastrophe.  As  geologists  ceased  to  theo- 
rise, and  looked  closer  into  the  history  of  the  earth, 
the  conjectured  catastrophes  faded  away  one  by  one. 
It  was  seen  that  one  age  slid  slowly  into  another 
through  insensible  changes ;  it  was  seen  that  the  ani- 
mal life  of  the  world  altered  its  character  even  more 
slowly  than  the  earth  itself ;  that  there  was  no  break ; 
that  transition,  instead  of  being  exceptional,  was  the 
rule ;  that  there  were,  properly  speaking,  no  transition 
periods ;  that  it  was  all  transition. 

The  same  change  of  idea  waited  upon  history ;  na- 
tions, it  was  seen,  when  facts  were  examined,  did  not 
die  suddenly,  but  decayed.  The  catastrophe,  when  it 
did  take  place,  was  the  result  of  inward  and  slow 
disease,  and  did  not  at  all  produce  annihilation.  The 
elements  of  the  fallen  nation  lived  again  in  other 
forms,  and  entered  into  the  new  national  life  which 
rose  over  its  ruins.  Successive  nations  were  like  the 
succession  of  forests  which  we  are  told  clothed  Scandi- 
navia in  the  old  days,  passing,  as  the  climate  changed, 
from  fir  to  oak,  and  from  oak  to  beech.  Each  forest 
period  was  new  and  different  from  its  predecessor,  but 
each  drew  its  life  from  the  elements  of  the  preceding. 

In  the  history  of  nations,  as  in  the  history  of  the 
earth,  there  were  no  violent  transitions.  It  was  seen 
that  each  historical  era  overlapped  its  successor,  and 
modified  it,  and  that  new  political  systems  arose,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  not  only  within  but  absolutely  out  of 


Yotith^  and  its  Questions  To-day,  293 

the  old.  Transition  never  ceased ;  it  was  the  law,  not 
the  exception. 

And  now,  as  a  theological  idea  had  insensibly  in- 
fluenced history  and  science,  these  in  turn  have  had 
their  revenge,  and  their  idea  of  slow  evoluticm  has 
insensibly  entered  into  the  region  of  theology. 

In  most  educated  men's  minds  the  expectation  of  a 
catastrophe  of  the  vast  character  formerly  believed 
in  has  utterly  passed  away.  Mankind  grows  towards 
its  close  as  the  earth  grows,  as  nations  have  grown ; 
and  the  close  itself  of  this  time- world  will  not  be  in  a 
physical  ruin,  but  in  the  perfection  of  the  race  through 
a  slow  evolution  —  on  the  whole  uniform  —  during 
which  the  evil,  worldly,  and  transitory  elements  will  be 
gradually  worked  out. 

This  is  the  theory,  at  least,  which  we  embrace.  At 
the  same  time,  this  theory  does  not  shut  out  the  possi- 
bility of  a  catastrophe  or  convulsion  now  and  then 
occurring,  just  as  we  admit  the  fact  of  sudden  con- 
versions like  S.  Paul's  in  the  history  of  spiritual 
experience.  Geologists  allow  temporary  periods  of 
convulsionary  action  during  which  rapid  changes  took 
place  in  the  crust  of  the  earth.  Historians  cannot 
deny  that  there  are  instances  where  nations  have  sunk, 
as  it  were,  like  ships  in  a  hurricane,  and  left  scarcely  a 
rack  behind.  And  it  seems  true  that  the  slow  progress 
of  the  race  wants  now  and  then,  as  our  own  personal  life 
does,  a  kind  of  catastrophe  to  turn  up  to  the  surface 
elements  belonging  to  mankind  which  have  sunk  out 
of  use.  ^ 

So,  taking  in  all  these  conditions,  we  see  the  human 


294         Youths  audits  Questio7is  To-day. 

race  going  on  to  an  end  which  is  not  destruction  but 
perfection.  There  has  been  continual  change,  generally 
slow,  rarely  rapid ;  but  on  the  whole,  as  we  look  back, 
we  see  growth,  not  decay,  ruling  in  the  history  of  the 
race.  A  Divine  Spirit  has  been  living  in  the  world,  and 
will  move  in  it  till  the  close  come.  It  is  He  who  said  : 
'  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world.' 

We  may  live  in  a  time  when  evolution  is  more  than 
commonly  rapid ;  or  in  a  time  when  the  world  is  resting 
in  a  kind  of  Sabbath  of  progress ;  or  in  a  time  of  cata- 
strophe ;  or  when  two  periods  are  mingled  together,  the 
old  overlapping  the  new.  But  in  whichever  stage  we 
live — and  each  has  its  own  dangers  to  our  spiritual  life, 
the  danger  of  over-excitement  in  the  first,  of  inactivity 
of  soul  in  the  second,  of  despair  of  heart  in  the  third,  of 
confusion  of  thought  in  the  last,  where  the  mingling  of 
two  periods  produces  that  clashing  of  opinions  in  which 
the  delightful  sense  of  the  constancy  of  truth  is  lost — 
in  whichever  period  we  live,  our  strength  in  one  and  all, 
our  shield  against  their  dangers,  is  faith  in  this  pro- 
mise of  Christ,  and  the  boundless  hope  and  kindling 
impulse  in  it :  '  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway ;  even  unto 
the  end  of  the  world.' 

We  ourselves  live  in  a  time  which  is  called  a  time  of 
transition,  when  the  old  thoughts  of  men  are  contending 
in  a  sharp  battle  with  the  new — so  sharp,  that  the  very 
outsiders  and  camp-followers  of  the  armies  of  the  world, 
the  idle  men  and  women,  take  an  interest  and  engage 
themselves  therei^  in  a  desultory  manner.  Men  and 
ideas  astonish  and  confuse  us. 


Youth,  and  lis  Questions  To-day,  295 

Men  of  whom  we  thought  little  step  forward,  and,  by 
force  of  a  strong  conviction,  take  a  prominent  place. 
Men  of  low  intellect,  but  of  great  enthusiasm,  gain 
power.  Men  whom  we  trusted  as  leaders  slide  back, 
afraid  of  the  plunge.  Men  who  led  our  youth,  now 
grown  too  old  to  accept  the  new  results  of  the  ideas 
they  have  helped  to  sow,  are  content  to  remain  fixed 
in  a  mould  which,  once  capable  of  expansion,  is  now 
hardening  around  them.  Men  who  were  our  ideals, 
who  have  given  us  impulse  and  hope,  disappoint  us. 
Fear  or  the  world  touches  them,  or  weaknesses,  which 
liad  lain  latent  in  their  character,  arise  and  taint  their 
purity  of  purpose.  There  is  no  certainty,  it  seems, 
in  men.  We  become  distrustful  and  indignant.  But 
it  is  because  we  look  to  men  too  much,  and  have  not 
faith  in  the  man  Christ  Jesus.  It  matters  after  all 
but  little  how  men  deceive  us.  We  have  one  Leader 
who  never  disappoints,  to  whom  truth  is  as  dear  now 
as  it  was  to  Elm  on  earth,  who  encompasses  our  failure 
with  his  success,  our  weakness  with  his  strength,  our 
restlessness  with  his  rest,  and  lo !  He  is  with  us 
always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

Ideas  trouble  us  even  more  than  men.  We  are 
hemmed  in  with  a  crowd  of  them,  all  jostling,  fighting 
with  one  another,  and  in  the  mellay  we  cannot  quite 
distinguish  under  what  banner  to  array  ourselves. 
There  are  ideas,  half  of  the  old,  half  of  the  new  theo- 
logy, half  marble,  half  living  men,  like  the  prince  in 
the  Arabian  story ;  and  others  struggling  out  of  the 
soil  of  perished  thoughts,  like  the  dead  in  Tintoret's 
*  Last  Judgment.'     There  are  religious  ideas  borrowed 


296         Yotitk,  audits  Questions  To-day, 

from  Christianity  but  wliicL.  deny  Christianity.  There 
are  ideas  which  have  all  but  died,  but  which  are 
making  a  last  fight  for  life ;  there  are  others  just  born, 
which  as  yet  have  only  interested  a  few  men — and  we 
are  in  the  midst  of  it  all,  seeing  much  we  once  believed 
overthrown,  and  not  able  as  yet  to  comprehend  the 
new,  so  that  in  the  noise  and  mist  of  the  battle,  like 
that  last  fight  of  Arthur's  beside  the  Northern  Sea, 
there  is 

Confusion,  since  he  saw  not  whom  he  fought ; 

For  friend  and  foe  were  shadows  in  the  mist, 

And  friend  slew  friend,  not  knowing  whom  he  slew  ; 

And  some  had  visions  out  of  golden  youth, 

And  some  beheld  the  faces  of  old  ghosts 

Look  in  upon  the  battle. 

It  is  hard  in  a  '  dim,  weird  battle '  like  this  to  discover 
and  choose  the  leading  thoughts,  whose  lights  will  burn 
with  self-increasing  fire,  when  the  fight  is  over  and  the 
mist  floats  away  to  the  west  to  die  in  the  daylight  of 
God.  An  angry  feeling,  like  that  of  Hamlet,  of  a  duty 
laid  on  us  too  great  for  our  energy,  comes  upon  our 
heart.  It  is  the  anger  of  weakness.  '  Why  are  we  born 
in  such  evil  times  ?  Why  are  we  called  upon  to  seek, 
to  choose,  to  distinguish  true  from  false  forms  of 
truth?  Why  have  we  no  peace  at  heart?'  These 
thoughts  are  bitter  in  hours  of  depression,  when  illness 
besets,  or  life  has  for  a  time  gone  wrong,  and  then, 
being  natural  and  transient,  they  are  not  undignified. 
But  if  they  are  continued,  if  they  are  kept  as  the  sour 
food  which  we  give  the  soul  at  all  times,  they  are 
unworthy  of  man  and  woman.  They  enslave  more 
rapidly  than    any   other  thoughts   the   free   life   and 


Youth,  and  its  Qtiestiom  To-day.  297 

natural  movement  of  the  heart  and  spirit.  They  injure 
the  will,  80 -that  it  becomes  wavering,  the  victim  of 
passing  thoughts  and  morbid  feelings. 

It  is  then  that,  remembering  our  worth  as  soldiers 
of  mankind,  and  of  mankind  made  divine  in  Christ, 
we  should  resolve,  come  what  will,  to  contend  with  our 
difficulty  till  we  disentangle  truth,  till  we  find  the 
sunlight.  And  if  we  do  not  see  our  way,  if  the  gloom 
be  too  thick  for  striking,  and  the  noise  too  loud  for 
thought,  it  is  our  wisdom  to  wait  with  patience  till  there 
be  sufficient  light  for  action,  nor  yet  to  wail  over  our 
fate  because  we  are  forced  to  wait — for  more  of  prac- 
tical strength,  of  that  latent  power  which  multiplies 
from  itself,  comes  from  restrained  endurance  than  from 
loosened  action. 

These  thoughts  beset  us  now,  when  a  natural  in- 
stinct makes  us  pause  to  consider  human  life.  And 
from  the  large  and  abstract  thoughts  we  sweep  back 
to  ourselves  and  look  upon  our  personal  life.  We  are 
like  men,  to-day,  who  have  just  crested  a  ridge  in  a 
mountain  journey.  Behind  us  is  the  valley  of  the  past 
year ;  before  is  another  valley  and  another  ridge,  over 
which  our  path  lies  this  coming  year.  We  rest  upon 
the  summit  for  retrospect  and  prospect,  for  contempla- 
tion and  for  hope. 

We  look  back.  We  have  had  our  catastrophes  ;  our 
hours  of  rest ;  our  awakenings  at  the  touch  of  new 
thoughts  or  the  advent  of  new  friends ;  our  secret  bitter- 
ness, our  hours  of  loneliness,  perhaps  of  despair ;  our 
visions  of  ideal  joy ;  hopes  too  wild  for  fulfilment,  but 
which  left  their  sting  of  pleasure ;  efforts  after  noblo 


298         YoiUh,  audits  Qtiestions  To-day. 

ends  wliicli  failed,  but  whose  failure,  since  tlie  aim  was 
so  divine,  has  done  our  hearts  more  good  than  many  a 
poor  success ;  sins  which,  as  we  look  back,  seem  to  have 
left  an  indelible  stain  upon  our  lives.  Thoughts,  feel- 
ings, events  crowd  upon  our  memory.  We  have  scarcely 
breath  for  quiet  thought. 

There  is  one  question  which  we  must  ask  ourselves, 
and  force  the  heart  into  sufficient  calm  to  answer.  Has 
there  been  growth  ?  If  so,  catastrophes  of  heart  or  life, 
sorrows,  sins  and  failures,  are  practically  nothing  in  the 
balance.  They  are  dead  ;  let  the  dead  bury  their  dead. 
We  have  the  right  in  Christ  to  shake  them  off  and  sta,rt 
afresh.  The  serpent  does  not  keep  the  fragments  of 
his  old  skin  hanging  about  his  new  enamel.  No  more 
should  we.  If  we  feel  that  we  have  gained  even  one  new 
impulse  towards  good,  that  even  one  sin  is  weaker  than 
it  was,  we  are  licensed  to  claim  forgiveness ;  and  God 
loves  the  faithful  violence  which  claims  it  and  in  the 
claim  gains  life  enough  to  begin  again. 

True,  we  may  not  be  able  to  distinguish  growth.  Our 
eyes  have  too  many  tears  in  them  to  see  clearly,  our 
vision  of  the  past  is  too  close  to  allot  to  things  their  true 
proportion.  Tor  we  cannot  see  after  one  year  the  growth 
of  the  oak,  we  only  see  the  scars  where  some  great 
boughs  have  been  torn  away  by  the  tempest.  But  the 
thin  ring  of  bark  which  we  do  not  see  is  the  important 
matter,  the  riven  branches  are  unimportant  in  com- 
parison. 

And  if  Christ's  spirit  has  been  with  us  even  in  one 
additional  aspiration  which  has  led  to  action,  then  it 
is  faithlessness   and  cowardice  to  sit  down  upon  tlie 


Youih^  and  Us  Questions  To-day,  299 

ridge  and  wriug  our  hands  over  the  past.  Out  of  that 
nothing  ever  comes ;  but  out  of  faith  and  the  effort  of 
the  soul,  and  *  no  continuance  of  weak-mindedness,' 
arises  the  strong,  if  tearful,  resolution  to  go  forward 
trusting  in  the  strength  and  forgiveness  Of  Him  who 
is  with  us  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world 

It  may  be,  however,  that  other  elements  have  come 
into  our  life  which  give  us  real  reasons  for  dismay. 
There  are  times  when  a  strange  thing  happens  to  us — 
when  old  evils,  old  temptations  which  we  thought  we  had. 
conquered,  which  had  died  out  of  our  lives,  arise  again, 
and  we  tremble  with  the  thought  that  past  effort  has 
been  in  vain,  that  sins  cannot  have  been  forgiven 
because  they  appear  again.  • 

But  there  may  be  an  explanation  even  of  this.  I 
cannot  but  think  that  it  is  not  always  a  note  of  retro- 
gression, but  often  a  note  of  growth.  First,  it  is  not 
an  experience  which  comes  to  imaspiring  spirits.  *  It 
belongs  especially  to  those  who  are  possessed  with  the 
desire  to  advance ;  to  pass  beyond  the  bounds  of  mortal 
thought  and  find  the  fount  of  Truth.  The  very  fact 
that  we  are  conscious  of  it,  and  feel  its  bitterness, 
proves  that  the  soul  is  sensitive  and  on  the  watch  ;  and 
such  a  soul  cannot  be  going  backwards.  It  will  gird 
up  its  loins  for  battle,  and  disperse  these  foes.  They 
have  been  already  beaten ;  they  will  fly  again  before 
spiritual  courage. 

Again,  this  resurrection  of  evil  things  and  thoughts 
may  in  itself  be  caused,  not  by  any  cessation  of 
growth,  but  by  the  progress  of  growth  itself.  When  a 
field  has  been  well  cleared,  and  the  upper  soil  purified, 


300         Youth,  and  its  Questions  To-day. 

it  will  produce  but  a  few  weeds.  But  if  in  after-years 
the  plough  is  driven  deep  through  it  and  the  under  soil 
■upturned,  old  weeds  will  reappear.  Their  latent  seeds 
are  nourished  into  life  by  the  sunlight  and  the  rain. 
It  is  the  same  with  us.  If  a  catastrophe  of  sorrow  has 
come  in  the -past  year  and  upturned  the  foundations  of 
life — if  a  new  idea,  or  a  change  in  the  circumstances 
of  existence,  has  shaken  or  torn  up  our  inner  life — 
we  must  expect  that  old  evils  and  old  temptations  will 
startle  us  by  their  resurrection,  just  as  in  a  nation's 
revolution,  evils  which  had  seemed  dead  arise  for  a 
time  again.  But  they  arise  because  the  soil  has  been 
upturned,  they  arise  because  a  revolution  has  taken 
place,  i}ftj  arise  because  there  is  life  enough  in  the 
soul  not  to  be  content  with  old  things,  even  though  the 
peace  of  them  was  pleasant.  They  mark  the  beginning 
of  a  new  era  of  progress,  destined,  by  its  own  rush  of 
novel  life,  to  extinguish  the  last  remnants  of  these 
evils  and  to  be  triumphant,  if  we  have  faith  and  courage, 
to  say,  and  act  upon  our  speech,  '  Lo  !  He  is  with  me 
always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world.' 

Once  more.  It  is  becoming  the  fashion  among  persons 
who  take  one-sided  opinions  from  science,  and  talk  of 
law  without  investigating  the  operation  of  nature,  to 
say,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  forgiveness  of  sins, 
no  healing  for  error.  It  is  the  gospel  declaration,  its 
first  and  last  declaration,  that  sins  are  forgiven ;  and 
instead  of  being  a  declaration  belonging  only  to  Chris- 
tianity, it  is  supported  by  observation  of  nature,  by 
the  history  of  science,  by  the  history  of  the  world,  by 
the  experience  of  men.      Only,  the  forgiveness  is  not 


Youth,  audits  Qucstious  To-day,  301 

the  annihilation  of  the  sin,  it  is  its  transmutation ;  it 
does  not  arise  out  of  ignoring,  but  out  of  accepting  its 
existence,  out  of  looking  it  firmly  in  the  face,  and 
resolving  to  use  it  as  a  means  of  conquering  itself. 

We  see  forgiveness  in  nature.  She  redeems  her  evil 
when  she  makes  fertile  soil  from  the  ashes  of  the  vol- 
cano, and  covers  her  ruin  with  meadow,  flowers,  and 
vines.  Her  prodigal  eflbrt  creates  new  beauty  out  of 
her  devastation,  and  the  beauty  i^  richer  for  the  evil, 
and  by  the  evil.  The  hurricane  has  laid  waste  the 
forest,  but  it  is  only  the  decaying  trees  and  those  whose 
lofty  and  overarching  heads  shut  put  the  light  which 
perish.  A  few  years  after,  the  pardon  of  nature  fills  the 
rents  of  ruin  with  young  plants,  rejoicing  in  the  air  and 
the  light.  The  running  fire  has  devoured  the  prairie, 
it  lies  before  us  a  coal-black  plain.  Next  year  it  is  of  a 
fresher  green,  the  flowers  have  livelier  hues.  The  roots 
were  unjiouched,  the  rain  has  washed  into  the  earth  the 
carbon  and  nitrogen,  and  the  bounteous  forgiveness  of 
nature  has  made  a  lovelier  life  out  of  the  very  elements 
of  her  unkindness. 

But  as  this  analogy  is  open  to  attack,  let  us  take 
another.  The  history  of  science  is  the  history  of  ex- 
hausted errors.  One  after  another  their  impossibility 
was  demonstrated.  All  the  mistakes  possible  to  be 
made  with  regard  to  the  system  of  the  universe  were 
made.  Were  they  unforgiven  ?  They  were  necessary 
steps  in  the  progress  of  knowledge ;  one  after  another 
they  were  found  out,  and  their  forgiveness  was  secured 
when  men,  having  experienced  and  rejected  all  the 
errors,  rested  securely  in  the  truth.     The  same  law 


302  Youth,  and  its  Questions  To-day. 

holds  good  in  the  history  of  national  progress.  Nations 
advance  through  exhausting  errors,  and,  as  they  find 
them  out,  paving  with  them  the  path  of  their  progress, 
till  fuU  forgiveness  is  realised  in  the  attainment  of 
true  forms  of  government.  But  the  true  was  found 
only  through  knowing  and  conquering  the  false. 

To  come  to  the  experience  of  men.  Who  are  the 
men  who  succeed  in  a  noble  manner,  who  influence 
the  nation's  heart,  who  advance  her  commerce,  who 
rule  her  thought  ?  They  are  those  who  can  rise  out  of 
failure  and  shake  it  off;  who  when  they  err,  accept 
their  error,  and  say,  '  Now  I  know  where  I  am  weak, 
ihat  I  will  never  do  again ; '  who  look  their  sin  straight 
in  the  face,  and  say,  '  It  is  bad  and  vile,  but  it  can 
be  redeemed  by  effort,  lived  down  by  perseverance  in 
good ; '  who  do  not  despair  and  hide  their  face  in  a 
cowardly  remorse,  but  who  believe  that  the  world  for- 
gives sins  if  it  sees  determined  action  towards  their 
opposite;  who  make  their  mistakes,  their  failures,  the 
stepping-stones  to  their  success. 

And  shall  we,  because  we  have  laid  hold  of  half  a 
truth,  that  results  cannot  be  changed,  forget  the  other 
half — that  if  we  change,  results,  though  remaining  the 
same,  change  to  us  ? — shall  we  in  our  spiritual  life  deny 
the  lesson  of  nature,  and  of  history,  and  of  human  life, 
and  fold  our  hands  and  say,  '  There  is  no  forgiveness  '  ? 

It  is  true,  as  they  say,  that  results  cannot  be  changed ; 
that  they  follow  upon  sins  by  unalterable  law.  But 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  not  in  taking  away  punish- 
ment, but  in  changing  the  heart  with  which  we  meet 
punishment.     Everyone  knows  in  life  how  different  are 


Youth,  and  its  Questions  To-day.  303 

the  effects  of  suffering  when  it  comes  on  ns  from  one 
we  hate  or  from  one  we  love.  "When  we  are  angry  with 
God,  the  natural  results  of  our  sins  produce  in  us 
hardness,  hatred,  and  misunderstanding  of  Him.  But 
when  we  are  led  to  love  Him,  the  same  results,  not 
changed  in  themselves,  but  changed  to  us,  for  we  are 
changed,  lead  us  to  penitence,  to  love  of  God,  to  cast 
our  care  and  life  upon  Him.^  That  is  forgiveness  of 
sins.  Their  moral  burden  is  removed,  and  their  in- 
evitable results  become  means  of  good. 

Moreover,  everyone  knows  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  forgiveness.  We  have  the  word,  we  use  it  day  by 
day ;  is  there  no  fact  which  answers  to  it  ?  Friends 
have  forgiven  us  our  wrongs  to  them,  and  greater  love 
has  followed  on  forgiveness.  We  forgive  our  children, 
even  when  they  sting  us  most  bitterly ;  and  does  God 
never  rise  to  the  height  of  .the  human  nature  He  has 
made  ?     Is  the  Father's  charity  below  the  children's  ? 

Therefore,  I  say,  because  we  may  redeem  the  past  in 
Christ,  let  us  g^  forward  with  the  patience  and  effort  of 
men.  We  will  not  despair  while  we  are  wise,  nor  let 
the  soul  in  ntter  faithlessness  commit  the  sin  of  Judas. 
God  is  mightier  than  our  evil,  too  loving  for  our  sins. 
We  shall  be  punished,  but  healed  through  the  punish- 
ment. 

Again,  we  turn  and  look  upon  the  valley  of  the  past 
year.  There,  below,  are  the  spots  stained  by  our  evil 
and  our  fear.  But  as  we  look,  a  glow  of  sunshine 
breaks  upon  the  past,  and  in  the  sunshine  is  a  soft  rain 
falling  from  the  heaven.  It  washes  away  the  stain. 
ITie  spell  is  broken  which  kept  us  weeping  on  the  ridge. 


304         Youth,  and  its  Questions  To-day, 

The  phantom  cloud  of  sins,  errors,  failures,  melts  away 
in  the  growing  ligh.t,  and  from  the  purity  of  the 
upper  sky  a  voice  seems  to  descend  and  enter  our 
sobered  heart :  '  My  child,  go  forward,  abiding  in  faith, 
hope,  and  love ; '  for  *  lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world.' 


Youths  and  its  Hope  of  Progress.  305 


[Jan.  1870.] 

YOUTH^  AND  ITS  HOPE  OF  PHOGHESS. 

'  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world.' 
Matt  xxViiL  20. 

We  stood  last  Sunday  on  the  ridge  whict  divides  the 
vaUey  of  the  old  year  from  the  valley  of  the  new.  To- 
day we  have  passed  away  from  the  summit  and  begun 
the  unknown  descent.  Every  step  brings  us  and  the 
nation  and  the  world  into  a  new  position,  into  scenes 
similar,  it  may  be,  to  those  we  have  passed  by,  but 
never  identical.  It  was  right  the  last  time  we  met  here 
to  look  back,  that  we  might  gather  into  a  practical 
form  the  experiences  and  lessons  of  the  vanished  year. 
It  is  equally  right  now  to  look  forward,  that  we  may 
understand  our  feelings,  clear  our  hopes  from  errors, 
and  muster  the  armies  of  the  soul  in  disciplined  an-ay 
for  action.  We  have  indulged  ourselves  enough  in 
retrospect.  While  we  are  as  yet  upon  the  upper  ledges 
of  the  hills,  we  will  indulge  ourselves  in  prospect.  But 
we  cannot  see  clearly ;  the  mist  closes  and  opens  in 
the  vale  below.  Strange  voices  come  up  to  us  from 
the  world  beneath,  phantom  tones  of  weeping  and  of 
mirth ;  notes  whose  sound  we  do  not  know,  of  friends 
whom  we  shall  make  in  the  coming  journey,  of  events 
14 


3o6  Youths  audits  Hope  of  Progress. 

wliich  will  alter  the  movement  of  life,  of  passions  as  yet 
unstirred  within  us  which  may  waken  into  being. 
Mystery  lies  upon  the  future,  but  mystery  has  its  charm 
as  well  as  its  pain,  and  conjecture  its  subtile  delight  as 
well  as  its  delicate  dread. 

To  what  are  we  descending  ?  Whom  shall  we  meet  in 
the  path  ?  What  joy  to  transfigure  life,  what  sorrow  to 
paralyse  it,  shall  we  encounter?  These  are  questions 
which  the  soul  insists  on  forming,  but  which  it  fears  to 
form.  We  are  tempted  to  lie  down  and  rest,  to  shut 
down  the  lid  of  life,  to  quench  aspiration  because  of  its 
trouble,  and.thought  because  of  its  weariness. 

Let  us  alone,  what  pleasure  can  we  have 
To  war  with  evil  ?     Is  there  any  peace 
In  ever  climbing  up  the  climbing  wave  ? 

But  the  soul,  mindful  of  the  imperial  palace  whence 
it  came,  indignantly  denies  the  lotus-eater's  thought. 
Christ  speaks  in  our  spirit  and  echoes  the  denial,  too 
weak,  perhaps,  to  last  when  unsupported.  There  falls 
upon  our  ears  the  promise  which  brings  Divine  strength 
to  human  feebleness :  '  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even 
unto  the  end  of  the  world.' 

Of  our  own  personal  looking  forward  and  its  aims  I 
do  not  speak  to-day.  Our  subject  is,  how,  and  to  what 
we  should  look  forward  over  the  world  of  men. 

To  whom  was  the  promise  given  ? — that  is  a  question 
which  will  clear  our  way.  It  was  given  to  the  nucleus 
of  the  infant  Church,  the  eleven  Apostles  of  Christ. 
But — and  this  is  the  point — it  was  given  not  to  them 
alone,  but  to  all  men  in  them.  For  they  held  their 
apostolic  office  as  rep:fesentatives  of  the  race,  not  as 


Youih,  and  its  Hope  of  Progress.         307 

persons  divided  from  the  race.  They  were  men  whoso 
work  was  to  hand  on  their  apostleship,  till  by  apostolic 
work  there  should  bo  no  further  need  of  apostles ;  just 
as  government  is  to  be  transmitted  till,  by  just  laws 
and  wise  execution  of  laws,  there  is  no  further  need  of 
government.  They  were  privileged  for  the  purpose  of 
destroying  privilege.  They  were  chosen  out  of  man- 
kind in  order  that  all  mankind  might  be  included  in 
their  number. 

So  the  promise  is  to  them,  and  m  ihem  to  the  whole 
race.  The  moment  they  or  any  of  their  followers  lost 
sight  of  this,  and  claimed  the  promise  as  especially  or 
only  theirs — claimed  the  privilege  it  gave  of  minister- 
ing to  men  as  a  privilege  which  gave  them  the  power 
of  lording  over  men,  claimed  it  as  isolating  them 
into  a  class  apart  from  men,  claimed  it  as  giving  a 
right,  and  not  as  imposing  a  duty — that  moment  it  was 
taken  away  from  them  till  they  repented,  thaf  moment 
their  use  decayed  and  they  were  turned  into  a  curse. 
They  were  blessed  and  a  blessing  only  when  they  came 
like  the  Son  of  Man,  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but 
to  minister,  as  sons  of  men,  not  as  lords  of  men. 

*Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,'  was  said  by  repre- 
sentative Mankind  to  the  mankind  He  represented. 
And  this  is  in  accordance  with  a  theory  I  have 
frequently  laid  down.  Not  certain  portions  of  iftankind 
were  taken  by  Christ  into  the  Divine  nature,  but  the 
whole.  When  the  universal  Word  entered  into  man. 
He  could  not  take  only  any  particidar  manhood  into 
Himself.  That  which  He  took  must  be  as  universal  as 
the  thing  taken  could  be  by  its  nature.     There  was  a 


J 


08  Yotctk,  and  its  Hope  of  Progress. 


necessity,  wliicli  I  miglit  almost  call  logical,  of  tlie 
Divine  "Word  assuming  to  Himself,  not  a  manhood, 
but  mankind.  Christ  is  then  Humanity.  His  being  is 
bound  up  with  mankind's,  or  rather,  mankind's  in  Him. 
Hence  it  is  with  a  kind  of  horror  that  we  hear  any 
limitation  of  this  promise,  and  with  righteousness  that 
we  hate  the  opinions  of  those  who  claim  it  as  alone 
their  own.  For  it  is  an  attack  upon  the  entireness  of 
Christ.  If  He  is  not  with  all  Mankind  even  to  the 
end  of  the  world,  He  is  not  with  Himself. 

But  if  He  be  with  mankind  as  He  is  with  Himself, 
present  through  and  in  the  ages  as  their  heart  and 
brain,  then  He  is  the  source  whence  evolution  flows. 
And  because  He  is  perfect,  therefore  the  race  evolves 
towards  perfection,  and  evolution  towards  perfection  is 
progress.  We  look  forward,  then,  as  Christians,  and  as 
citizens  of  the  world,  to  the  constant  progress  of  man- 
kind. We  believe  that  the  progress  has  been  constant 
up  to  the  present  time.  There  have  been,  necessarily, 
some  catastrophes,  some  convulsions,  some  recessions 
of  the  tide ;  but  they  were  recessions  which  sent  the 
wave  of  freshening  liberty  higher  on  the  strand. 

It  is  characteristic  of  some  religious  persons  who  re- 
strict the  universality  of  Christ,  to  deny  that  there  has 
been  any  progress  of  the  race.  '  The  world  is  not  a  bit 
better  than  it  was ;  if  anything,  it  is  worse.  There  is 
great  material  and  intellectual  progress,  but  there  is  no 
moral  or  spiritual  progress.' 

But  when  we  examine  the  progress  of  the  whole  of 
mankind,  we  must  examine  not  facts  occurring  here  and 
there,  for  these  are  of  little  moment,  but  the  ideas  which 


Yo7Uh,  and  Us  Hope  of  Progress.         309 

direct  the  nations ;  not  the  petty  perturbations  of  the 
orbit,  but  the  vast  sweep  of  the  orbit  itself;  not  the 
advance  or  the  contrary  of  a  year  or  a  decade,  but 
whether  in  so  many  centuries  men  have  attained  to  a 
higher  sphere  of  thought  and  act,  in  mass,  on  larger 
and  freer  principles. 

It  is  impossible  to  bring  forward  one  half  of  the  proofs 
of  such  a  progress,  but  one  is  enough.  It  is  plain  to 
those  who  read  history  more  for  the  sake  of  human  ideas 
tlian  for  its  statistics,  that  many  of  the  ideas  which 
restricted  the  equal  freedom  of  men,  which  implicitly 
denied  the  two  great  universal  ideas  of  Christianity, 
that  all  men  are  alike  God's  children,  that  all  men  are 
brothers  in  Christ,  have  been  slowly  dying  away  and  are 
now  rapidly  dying.  In  the  decay  of  these,  progress 
is  seen;  in  looking  forward  to  their  ruin  is  our  best 
hope;  in  proving  that  their  ruin  is  contained  in 
Christianity  is  the  reconciliation  between  the  world 
and  Christianity.  And,  in  fact,  the  whole  current  of 
history  has  set  against  them ;  the  force  of  God  in  man 
is  opposed  to  them.  They  are  sinking  ships.  Some 
have  already  sunk,  and  the  waves  of  human  freedom 
have  rolled  over  them  with  joy.  The  moment  Christ 
proclaimed  the  oneness  of  the  race,  their  doom  was 
sealed,  but  not  accomplished.  Their  final  overthrow 
was  left  to  the  slow  work  of  man,  century  after  century. , 

Some  ask,  why  God  did  not  get  rid  of  these  evils 
by  an  exercise  of  omnipotence.  It  is  a  foolish  ques- 
tion. There  is  only  one  way  in  which  man  can  get 
rid  of  an  evil,  and  that  is  by  exhausting  it.  We  can- 
not get  the  answer  to  our  question,  *  What  is  right  ?'  till 


3 1  o  Youths  and  its.  Hope  of  Progress. 

we  have  held  fast  and  battled  with  the  Proteus  of  evil 
through  every  alteration  of  his  form.  We  must  work 
through  all  possible  errors  before  we  find  the  perfect 
good.  But  we  should  exhaust  them  much  sooner  if 
we  held  fast  to  the  primary  ideas  which  Christ  gave 
to  men.  I  do  not  think  that  anyone  can  now  deny 
that  the  ruin  of  such  ideas  as  the  divine  right  of  kings, 
privileged  classes,  imperialism,  dogmatism  and  its  child 
intolerance,  the  tyranny  of  priesthoods  over  the  souls  of 
men,  papal  infallibility,  the  godhead  of  capital,  is  logi- 
cally contained  in  the  doctrines  of  the  universal  Father- 
hood of  God  and  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man. 
There  is  no  need  of  peculiarly  sharp  eyes  to  see  that 
these  have  been  perishing,  and  one  of  the  things  we  have 
to  look  fortvard  to  with  joy  and  triumph  in  the  coming 
year  is  new  blows  being  dealt  upon  them — honest, 
do^vnright,  and,  I  hope,  merciless  blows.  Imperialism 
is  becoming  weaker  and  weaker,  and  with  its  fall '  di- 
vine right '  will  receive  a  deadlier  stroke  than  we  may 
at  first  imagine.  There  is  less  dogmatism  and  intole- 
rance in  religious  circles,  and  they  are  trying  now  to  find 
a  home  in  irreligious  circles.  Few  things  are  worse 
than  the  dogmatism  of  those  who  boast  of  being  undog- 
matic  and  the  intolerance  of  those  who  want  to  make 
everybody  tolerant  by  violence  of  words  and  bitterness 
of  satire.  The  way  in  which  young  atheism  speaks  of 
the  '  old  religions '  has  a  delicious  twang  of  Phari- 
saism about  it  and  a  naivete  of  intolerance  which  is 
irresistibly  humorous.  But  I  hope  that  by  falling  back 
on  Christianity  we  may  work  out  of  society  the  in- 
tolerance of  pretentious  tolerance  and  the  dogmatism 


Youth,  and  its  Hope  of  Progress.         3 1 1 

of  infidel  circles  of  thought.  This  ought  to  be  the 
work  of  the  liberal  church  school. 

Priest  power  over  the  souls  of  men  never  reached 
in  England  the  same  height  that  it  has  done  abroad. 
The  disease  came  sooner  to  the  surface  on  the  Continent, 
and  in  Grermany,  Austria,  Italy,  and  Spain,  its  race  seems 
to  be  run.  Here,  not  having  exhausted  all  its  forms 
80  rapidly,  it  has  suflPered  a  galvanic  resurrection ;  but 
as  soon  as  we  have  absorbed  into  society  the  good  ele- 
ments in  its  evil,  it  will  go  back  to  its  grave  and  lie  there 
undisturbed.  In  Ireland  it  is  worse  than  ever,  but  the 
worse  it  ffrows  the  nearer  draws  its  end.  All  tyranny  is 
doomed  by  its  very  nature  to  become  more  tyrannical, 
and  in  that  lies  latent  its  destruction.  Mankind,  like 
God,  is  very  long-suffering,  but  when  a  certain  point  is 
reached,  it  rises  and  casts  the  devil  out  of  its  body.  When 
priestly  power  in  Ireland  meddles  with  education  and 
limits  its  further  growth,  the  Irish,  who  have  a  passion 
for  education,  will  at  last  arise  and  do  as  Austria  has 
done.  It  may  take  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty  years,  but 
who  cannot  foresee  the  end  ? 

Papal  infallibility  will  receive  its  death-blow  on  the 
day  that  it  is  proclaimed,  and  I  hope  it  may  be  pro- 
claimed. There  are  some  victories  which  are  irreme- 
diable ruin. 

Privileged  classes,  whose  claims  are  so  tenacious  of  life 
abroad,  but  which  were  always  healthily  opposed  here, 
and  many  of  which  are  now  being  heartily  surrendered, 
will  less  and  less  press  their  demands  and  throw  them- 
selves on  an  equal  footing  with  other  classes  into  the 
arena  of  life.    And  this  will  be  their  wisdom,  for  the 


312  Youth,  and  its  Hope  of  Progress.. 

history  of  privilege  is  the  history  of  the  destruction  of 
those  who  claimed  it.  There  is  one  privilege,  however,  as 
rampant  as  ever.  It  is  the  privilege  some  assume  to 
themselves  of  living  a  life  of  mere  amusement,  while  the 
rest  of  the  world  is  working.  They  lounge,  they  visit 
one  another,  they  gossip,  they  drift  uselessly  about,  they 
claim  the  right  of  being  served  and  not  serving,  of  taking 
and  not  contributing.  They  are  the  worst  thieves  the 
world  has,  and  the  worst  tyrants.  For  they  rob  the  world 
of  the  leisure  which  would  be  saved  were  they  to  do 
their  work,  and  of  the  capital  which  might  be  made 
productive  did  they  not  squander  it,  and  theirs  is  the 
true  maxim  of  all  tyrants  :  '  The  world  was  made  for  us, 
and  not  we  for  the  world.' 

It  is  their  lives  which  give  sharpness  and  poison  to 
all  the  bitter  feelings  which  the  poorer  have  against 
the  richer  classes. 

Against  all  these  things  the  first  principles  of  Christ 
are  contending ;  and  they  shall  conquer,  for  He  is  with 
mankind,  even  to  the  end. 

This  is  the  progress  we  look  forward  to,  and  when  men 
begin  to  understand  that  this  is  the  work  of  Christ's 
thought,  they  will  turn  to  Him  not  only  as  Master  of 
souls,  but  as  King  of  nations. 

It  is  useless  to  object  that  Christianity  has  been  the 
hireling  of  these  retrograde  and  deathful  things. 
Everyone  knows  the  uses  to  which  priests  and  kings 
and  mobs  Iiave  put  Christianity ;  but  they  were  obliged 
to  travesty  it  first,  and  it  is  gross  injustice  to  call  these 
travesties  Christianity.  It  marks  that  unfairness  of 
intellect  which  is  the  characteristic  note  of  intolerance. 


Yotith,  and  its  Hope  of  Progress,         3 1 3 

Truth  is  a  good  thing,  but  if  a  man  of  ill-temper  sets 
himself  to  tell  everyone  truly  what  he  thinks  of  them, 
to  expose  all  their  failures,  to  lay  bare  all  their  wounds, 
that  sort  of  truth  is  a  hateful  thing.  But  we  do  not 
cease  for  all  that  to  reverence  truth,  because  this  per- 
secuting person  has  caricatured  it.  And  when  we  have 
got  to  think  for  ourselves,  and  ceased  to  put  our  reli- 
gion into  the  hands  of  persons  whom  we  get  to  make 
it  up  for  us  into  a  system  which  we  swallow  whole, 
we  may  have  the  common  sense  and  the  fairness  to 
say,  '  I  want  to  find  out  for  myself  what  Christ  really 
did  say.  I  will  listen  no  more  to  the  scholars  and 
their  Christianities  which  they  set  up  to  fight  with  one 
another.  I  will  go  and  listen  to  the  Master  Himself, 
and  "  learn  of  Him,  for  He  is  meek  and  lowly  of  heart, 
and  I  shall  find  rest  to  my  soul.' ''  Why,  is  it  not 
wonderful  how  a  single  text  like  that — falling  like 
dew  upon  the  Ijfnd  of  the  heart,  swept  dry  and  tearless 
by  the  bitter  winds  of  controversy — disposes  at  once  of 
all  the  attacks  made  upon  Christianity,  by  proving 
that  these  haughty  and  tyrannical  Christianities  were 
not  Christianity  at  all  ?  When  were  they  meek  and 
lowly  of  heart  ? — when  did  they  ever  give  rest  to  the 
^oul? 

And  it  is  a  proof  of  the  intense  vitality  of  the  true 
Christianity  that  it  has  survived  all  these  false  images 
of  it,  that  in  the  midst  of  systems  diametrically  contra- 
dictory of  the  idea  of  its  Founder,  thousands  lived 
divinely  and  died  bravely  by  the  faith  they  had  in 
Christ.  In  the  midst  of  difficulties  such  as  no  other  re- 
ligion had  to  contend  with,  difficulties  which  came  from 


314         Youths  and  its  Hope  of  Progress, 

monstrous  and  missliapen  changelings  whicli  claimed 
to  be  the  true  children  of  Christ's  teaching,  it  produced 
such  a  band  of  holy  and  human  men  that,  with  every- 
thing apparently  against  it,  it  has  advanced,  and  in 
it  the  world.  It  presses  still  forward,  clothed  with 
many  of  the  rags  with  which  men  have  insisted  on  dis- 
guising its  perfect  form,  and  the  dogs  still  bay  around 
it  and  tear  at  the  ragged  drapery,  but  the  time  will 
come  when  we  shall  see  it  undisguised,  clothed  only 
in  the  light  of  God,  in  perfect  beauty ;  and  '  at  the  name 
of  Jesus  every  knee  shall  bow.' 

What  are  all  these  particular  religions  to  its  vast 
universality?  What  are  these  laborious  and  subtile 
systems  to  its  profound  simplicity?  What  are  all 
theories  of  government  of  the  people  to  its  divine 
Humanity,  which  embraces  every  man,  without  respect 
of  persons,  in  the  limitless  love  of  God  the  Eather, 
and  knits  each  man  to  his  neighbour^in  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  Christ,  and  passes  on  to  say,  with  an 
onward  look  to  something  not  realised  as  yet,  that  a 
national  God  exists  no  longer,  but  a  universal  God? 
The  true  progress  of  the  race  is  hidden  in  the  thoughts 
of  Christ. 

We  look  forward,  then,  upon  this  '  bank  and  shoal  of 
time,'  to  the  destruction  of  all  false  conceptions  of  the 
relations  of  God  to  man  and  of  man  to  man;  to  the 
hail  which  will  sweep  away  the  lingering  remnants  of 
every  idea  which  limits,  isolates,  and  tyrannises  over 
men.  For  the  Redeemer  is  with  us  always — even  to  the 
end  of  the  world. 

But  we  must  not  expect  that  this  will  be  done  quickly 


Youth,  and  its  Hope  of  Progress.         3  r  5 

or  easily.  In  the  midst  of  evolution  catastrophes  will 
occur — are,  in  fact,  part  of  progress,  inasmuch  as  they 
turn  up  to  the  surface  new  and  needful  elements. 
Sometimes,  when  the  evil  is  deep  and  long-continued, 
and  especially  when  it  is  painted  by  hypocrisy  to  look 
like  good,  the  forward  step  cannot  be  made  without  the 
sun  being  turned  into  darkness.  We  have  learned  from 
France  last  century,  and  from  America  in  this,  that 
'  without  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sin.' 
We  are  ourselves  learning  in  Ireland  that  we  cannot 
reverse  the  injustice  and  oppression  ofi  centuries — with 
the  best  intentions  in  the  world — in  forty  or  fifty  years ; 
that  the  attempt  to  heal  aggravates  for  a  time  the  evil, 
and  produces  a  period  of  partial  catastrophe.  But, 
whatever  happens,  we  must  not  be  fearful  and  unbeliev- 
ing, and  turn  round  upon  our  principles  because  their 
result  has  surprised  some  of  us.  We  have  but  two 
things  to  live  by,*if  we  are  to  be  true  to  Christ — that 
God  is  the  Father  of  all  men,  and  that  men  are  brothers 
in  Christ ;  and  our  work,  to  which  we  are  bound  to  be 
faithful  unto  death,  is  to  carry  those  out  as  logically  as 
we  can — consistently  with  the  necessary  gradualness  of 
progress — in  national  government  and  in  international 
politics  as  well  as  in  the  inner  kingdom  of  the  soul. 
We  may  be  obliged  to  stay  our  hand,  but  never  to  retreat 
from  our  position.  We  have  precedent  for  the  one — 
'  I  have  many  things  to  say  to  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear 
them  now' — but  there  is  no  precedent  for  the  other. 
No  matter  how  loud  the  storm,  or  the  confusion,  we  must 
not  give  back  through  a  shameful  fear  of  catastrophe. 
The   disturbance   we    dread  may  be   the   very  thing 


3i6  Youth^  audits  Hope  of  Progress. 

required  to  bring  to  the  surface  the  elements  needed 
to  regenerate  the  country. 

The  same  things  are  true  in  the  case  of  the  religious 
ferment  of  which  I  spoke  last  Sunday  and  in  the  seeth- 
ing midst  of  which  we  live.  Look  boldly  into  it,  and 
you  will  see  that  it  tends  to  two  things  especially, — the 
claiming  by  lAen  of  their  personal  rights  as  sons  of 
God  and  brothers  one  of  another,  independent  of  all 
religious  systems  which  assert  a  divine  right  to  peculiar 
privileges ;  the  claiming  by  men  of  their  duty  to  pursue 
after  truth  whithersoever  it  may  lead  them,  without  any 
limitation  being  fixed  on  the  work  of  their  intellect  and 
conscience  except  that  which  is  supplied,  not  from  with- 
out by  command  of  a  church. or  a  sect,  but  from  within, 
by  the  intuition  and  feelings  of  their  spirit. 

But  he  who  makes  these  claims  must  expect  to  get 
into  troubled  water.  It  is  a  very  different  thing  to 
seek  after  God  for  yourself,  and  to  take  your  God  upon 
authority.  You  may  have  a  comfortable  life  of  it, 
though  a  degrading  one,  with  the  latter ;  you  will  have 
a  very  hard  life  of  it  with  the  other,  but  it  will  be  the 
ennobling  life  of  a  warrior.  And  if  you  choose  the 
noble  life,  there  ought  to  be  no  continued  complaining. 
Moments  of  depression  there  must  be,  moments  when 
the  noise  of  the  contest  and  the  confusion  of  doubtful 
thoughts  bring  with  a  sense  of  despair  a  passionate 
cry  for  rest,  but  we  must  not  loiter  long  in  that  sickly 
state.  If  we  have  chosen  to  be  free,  we  must  act  like 
freemen;  we  must  not  be  slaves  to  our  fear  of  cata- 
strophe, or  slaves  to  our  spiritual  sloth.  We  must  go 
forward  into  the  strife,  uplifting  our  souls  to  God  in 


Youthy  and  its  Hope  of  Progress »         3 1 7 

prayer,  trusting  in  the  promise  that  though  the  stress 
is  hard,  He  is  with  us  always. 

Let  no  man  or  woman  think,  who  is  still  young,  on 
whom  the  necessary  calm  of  age  has  not  fallen,  that 
they  will  have  a  quiet  life,  if  they  are  in  earnest,  for 
many  years  to  come,  either  in  the  world  without  or  in-' 
the  world  within  them.  Development  must  have  its 
rude  shocks,  evolution  its  transient  earthquakes,  pro- 
gress its  backslidings.  Accept  the  necessity,  count  the 
cost,  make  ready  to  take  your  part  in  the  things  which 
are  coming  on  the  earth.  Be  true  to  the  vast  Chris- 
tian principles  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother- 
hood of  man ;  steadily  go  to  war  with  every  opinion 
and  system  which  tends  to  limit  them  and  to  enslave 
men.  But  in  fighting  against  systems  and  opinions, 
do  not  be  betrayed  yourselves  into  intolerance  of  men, 
into  inability  to  see  the  good  in  the  evil,  into  any 
statement  or  action  which  may  practically  deny  that  the 
men  whose  views  you  oppose  are  children  of  God  and 
your  brethren  in  Christ.  Constantly  keep  your  temper 
in  the  battle ;  guard  jealously  your  power  of  looking  on 
all  sides  of  questions ;  watch  over  yourself  that  you  may 
be  above  all  things  just  to  men  and  their  opinions.  Clear 
your  minds  from  narrowness — the  narrowness  of  reli- 
gion, the  narrowness  of  scepticism,  the  narrowness  of  in- 
tellectual vanity ;  keep  yourself  apart  from  particular 
sets  of  men  and  opinion.  They  tend  to  fix  you  down,  to 
limit  your  life,  to  fetter  your  thought,  to  make  you  wise 
in  your  own  conceits.  See  that  you  mix  with  men 
your  brothers,  with  those  who  differ  from  yourselves,  who 
oppose  and  contradict  you.     Do  not  ride  at  anchor  in  a 


3 1 8  Youth,  and  its  Hope  of  Progress.  ^ 

safe  and  landlocked  bay,  in  cultured  comfort  of  thought, 
having  put  aside  all  troublesome  questions  of  the  un- 
known. You  cannot  quench  the  spirit  within  you,  with- 
out making  the  intellect  one-sided  and  the  conscience 
intolerant  or  dull.  Rather  tempt  the  ocean  paths  and 
sail  on  to  a  boundless  horizon,  gaining  strength  from 
trial  of  your  skill,  wisdom  from  the  storms  of  life,  ten- 
derness from  its  sorrows,  love  from  assisting  others,  aiid 
faith  in  the  final  issue  from  the  clear  inward  conscious- 
ness that  you  are  growing  up  into  all  that  is  best  in 
human  nature,  into  all  that  is  of  Christ.  Progress  is  the 
law  of  the  world,  it  is  the  law  which  ought  to  rule 
our  lives.  See  that  you  are  an  active  part  of  the  great 
evolution  of  the  race.  What  matters  after  all — the 
catastrophes,  the  convulsions  of  heart  and  intellect 
which  you  must  suffer,  the  shattered  sail,  the  midnight 
watch  in  the  hurricane,  the  loneliness  of  the  mid- 
ocean  ?  It  is  life  at  least,  it  is  more,  it  is  moving  with 
the  movement  of  the  world,  and  the  world  is  moving  in 
Christ. 

We  look  forward,  then,  with  a  joy  which  trembles  at 
itself  and  with  a  hope  which  is  inexhaustible  for  man. 
The  proper  Man  is  with  us ;  the  ideal  Mankind  walks 
hand  in  hand  with  the  imperfect  mankind.  The  spirit 
of  universal  freedom  and  truth  and  justice  is  moving  in 
the  ages.  He  moves  the  world  on  slowly — slowly  to  us ; 
but  what  are  a  thousand  years  to  Him  ? — and  consider. 
He  has  to  save  not  a  -  sect,  or  a  church,  or  a  few 
favourites,  but  all  mankind. 

The  wider  your  view  of  Christ's  salvation,  the  more 
reconciled  you  will  be  to  the  slowness  of  progress  ;  the 


Youiky  and  its  Hope  of  tr ogress.         3 1 9 

slower  you  see  progress  to  be,  the  more  rational  becomes 
your  liope  tbat  all  are  to  be  made  perfect,  even  as  their 
Father. 

Therefore,  because  the  future  is — though  mysterious — 
full  of  divine  will  towards  good,  go  forward  with  a  cheer- 
ful countenance.  God  keep  us  faithful  to  Him,  true 
to  one  another,  and  universal  in  spirit,  in  the  time  to 
come. 

Take  these  thoughts  with  you  for  the  year ;  go  down 
into  the  valley  with  your  brothers,  and  work  them  out 
in  life.  We  cannot  tell  our  fate,  but  our  fate  matters  but 
little  if  Man  be  going  on  to  good.  The  mist  sleeps  over 
the  valley  beneath,  but  it  is  transparent  to  the  eye  of 
faith,  and  through  it  we  see  the  river  of  progress 

Roll  o'er  Ely  si  an  fields  its  amber  stream, 

and  the  notes  of  a  great  harmony  fall  upon  our  ears, 
sweet  and  world-compelling  as  the  voice  of  Christ,  when 
He  said,  *  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of 
the  world.* 


320  The  Presentiments  of  Youth, 


THE  mESENTIMENTS  OF  YOVTII. 

*Lo;  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  tfie  world.' 
Matt,  xxviii.  20. 

Do  any  of  us  remember  the  hour,  when  leaving  home 
and  school  and  the  boy's  life  behind  us,  we  came  to  the 
great  university  with  an  eager  heart  ?  The  first  night 
in  the  antique  place,  how  wonderfully  we  were  stirred 
by  it !  As  we  looked  out  of  our  window  on  the  still 
quadrangle,  the  moonlight  poured  out  like  water  on  the 
grave  buildings  and  the  grass,  and  heard  the  bells  an- 
swering one  another  in  the  vocal  air,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
^lace  were  alive  with  all  the  dead.  The  thousand  forms 
of  famous  men  who  thither  came  with  unborn  thoughts 
within  them,  which  born,  should  move  the  world  to 
passion  and  to  power,  appeared  to  thrill  the  air  with 
their  unseen  presence.  A  strange  low  crying,  as  of 
souls  who  had  died  here  in  their  enthusiasm  and  never 
seen  their  hope,  slid  by  upon  the  wind.  The  silence 
was  eloquent  with  those  secrets  which  are  told  to  hearts 
that  listen  in  the  hour  of  presentiment,  secrets  which, 
though  they  seem  our  own  thoughts,  are,  it  may  be, 
impressions  from  that  silent  world  of  souls  of  which  our 
intellect  knows  nothing  but  our  heart  so  much.  As  we 
dreamed  our  dream,  hope   and  fear,  enthusiasm  and 


The  Presentiments  of  Youth.  321 

depression,  interchanged  their  glow  and  gloom  within 
us.  The  past  life — home  and  school  and  childhood — 
vanished  for  a  time;  we  seemed  to  have  been  asleep 
and  only  now  to  have  awakened.  And  with  what  a 
loosened  rein  we  rode  forward  into  the  unknown  fields 
of  the  future  I  Should  it  be  failure  or  success,  fame 
or  wasted  life,  enthusiasm  deepening  into  work  or 
grown  craven  in  the  chill  of  difficulty ;  pleasure  decay- 
ing into  pain  or  pain  growing  into  the  pleasure  of  con- 
quest? What  companions,  what  friendships,  what 
changes,  what  impulses  should  we  gain  and  leave  and 
suffer?  A  few  years,  and  what  sentence  should  we 
pass  on  the  life  of  youth  ? — progress  or  retrogression  ? 

It  is  gone,  that  time,  but  its  past  passions  and  pre- 
sentiments come  back  again  and  again  in  life,  come, 
most  often,  men  have  thought,  at  the  beginning  of  a 
year.  I  do  not  know  that  one  time  or  another  is  more 
full  of  them,  for  they  are  of  the  heart,  in  whose  king- 
dom there  is  neither  time  nor  space,  but  it  is  convenient 
to  speak  of  them  now ;  to-day,  of  the  look  forward  over 
our  own  life,  as  last  Sunday  over  the  world  of  men. 

Progress  is  our  aim,  growth  in  noble  things,  develop- 
ment of  every  human  power  to  perfection.  I  assume 
that  this  is  your  aspiration  and  your  effort.  Some 
prefer  the  base  contentment  of  the  Circcean  island  to 
the  uncontented  toil  of  Ulysses  on  the  wandering  sea. 
To  those  I  do  not  speak  to-day.  The  time  will  come 
when  God  will  speak  to  them  in  pain  and  horror  of 
themselves,  and  plague  them  with  sore  despair,  if  not 
here,  at  least  in  that  undiscovered  country  where  the 
inevitable  law  of  progress  will  force  them  forward  till 


322  The  Presentiments  of  Yonth. 

they  begin  to  enjoy  tlie  self-development  they  hated, 
and  growth  become  delight,  not  pain.  But  to  those 
who  still  aspire,  in  whom  desire  of  the  better  life  is  still 
alive,  who  look  forward  in  hope  that  some  faint  grace 
of  progress  may  mark  the  year,  we  speak  this  day. 

God  will  look  after  our  education.  We  may  have  to 
suffer  from  catastrophe,  we  may  be  destined  to  joy ;  we 
may  undergo  the  confusion  and  the  pain  of  an  inner 
change  in  the  slow  or  swift  development  of  a  crisis  in 
our  life. 

These  three,  catastrophe,  joy  and  change,  to  either 
or  to  all  of  these  we  look  forward  in  this  hour  of  pre- 
sentiment. 

We  take  them  one  by  one,  we  ask  if  the  forecasting 
of  them  has  anything  to  tell  us.  And  first,  the  presenti- 
ments of  catastrophe,  is  there  any  good  in  them  ?  Has 
God  been  unfair  to  ns  in  leaving  them  in  our  nature  ? 

I  think,  when  they  are  presentiments  ^regarding 
others,  that  they  make  our  life  more  delicate.  They 
give  a  finer  edge  to  noble  passions.  Love  becomes 
dearer  through  the  dream  of  loss,  the  joy  of  friendship 
more  exquisite  from  our  sense  of  its  transiency.  There 
are  times  when  the  dearest  affection  and  the  closest 
friendship  weary ;  we  have  exhausted  one  side  of  them 
and  have  not  yet  found  the  other.  We  are  tempted 
then  to  half-rudenesses,  small  cruelties,  want  of  thought- 
fulness  ;  but  these  are  softened  back  into  affection  when 
we  think  that  we  may  lose  all  in  a  moment,  and  only  tlio 
memory  of  the  wrong  we  have  done  remain.  '  In  a  year 
all  may  be  over :  let  me  be  more  gentle,  more  loving, 
more  faithful ;  more  attentive  to  the  slight  courtesies 


The  Prcscn  timen  is  of  }  'ou  th.  323 

and  tliouglitful  cares  and  pleasant  speeches  which  make 
up  the  sum  of  life.  "While  I  have  time  let  me  give 
all  I  can.  A  few  more  smiles  of  silent  sympathy,  a  few 
more  tender  words,  a  little  more  restraint  on  temper 
may  make  all  the  difference  between  happiness  and 
half-happiness  to  those  I  live  witlv*  And  if  the  pre- 
sentiment of  loss  do  this,  it  does  a  gracious  work.  It 
brings  the  heart  and  life  into  greater  harmony  with 
Him  who  loved  the  little  kindnesses,  which  given,  make 
their  recollected  hours  the  favourite  haunt  of  memory. 

But  if  the  presentiment  of  catastrophe  be  for  our- 
selves, it  ought  to  make  our  inner  life  more  delicate. 
More  delicate,  inasmuch  as  there  are  so  many  pleasant 
and  gracious  possibilities  in  our  own  nature  which  we 
neglect  to  educate.  We  might  see  so  much  more 
beauty  if  we  willed  it.  We  might  cause  many  unknown 
feelings  to  flower  if  we  were  not  in  such  a  hurry  to 
feel  stroi|g  ones.  We  miss  in  the  swing  of  excite- 
ment many  opportunities  of  giving  sympathy  in  little 
things  to  those  we  love,  which  if  they  had  been  used, 
would  have  added  finer  fiiucies,  subtiler  and  sweeter 
shades  to  our  power  of  feeling.  So  many  thoughts  are 
just  touched  and  laid  aside,  half  thought  and  then 
forgotten,  that  it  is  pitiable  how  much  is  wasted  in 
ourselves.  We  go  through  the  meadows  of  our  own 
hearts  crushing  with  a  careless  step  the  flowers. 

There  is  no  need  to  walk  so  fast.  Tread  more  deli- 
cately, more  thoughtfully — lest  when  the  catastrophe 
comes  you  find  too  late  that  you  have  not  got  the  good 
out  of  your  own  nature  which  you  might  have  done. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  puts  a  drag  upon  the  duty 


324  The  Presentiments  of  Youth. 

of  devoting  life  with  activity  to  one  aim.  But  I  feel 
that  there  is  no  fear  of  this  being  left  unpreached,  and 
moreover  that  it  may  be  preached  too  much.  Activity 
may  become  feverish;  the  rush  of  life  may  leave  no 
time  for  the  restoring  quiet  of  gentle  happiness.  We 
save  ourselves  from  weariness  and  satiety  by  being 
quieter  in  the  march,  more  delicate  in  our  appreciation 
of  the  wayside  thoughts  and  tenderness  of  life.  And 
our  activity  does  not  really  suffer  from  this  temperance 
in  the  use  of  it — from  our  keeping  a  Sabbath  now  and 
then  in  the  inner  life.  On  the  contrary,  it  lasts  longer, 
it  lives  to  old  age,  is  healthier  in  its  work,  more  clear- 
sighted in  its  aim. 

This  is  the  good  of  presentiments  of  catastrophe. 
They  minister,  if  we  are  wise,  to  progress,  by  giving 
a  greater  finish,  a  more  adorned  completeness,  to  the 
work  of  life. 

•  But  there  is  one  warning  necessary;  whe||  we  find 
that  they  refine  the  feelings  and  make  subtiler  the 
thought,  we  sometimes  tend  towards  indulging  in  them 
with  excess.  We  do  not  take  them  as  they  come,  we 
create  them  for  the  delicate  pleasure  and  the  refine- 
ment of  spirit  they  afford.  They  cease  then  to  be 
natural  and  become  sesthetic. 

The  punishment  of  that  is  swift.  Feeling  is  over- 
refined,  and  the  pleasure  is  so  keen  that  we  do  well 
to  suspect  that  it  may  be  the  keenness  which  comes  of 
incipient  disease.  But  we  have  got  the  habit  and  go  on. 
At  last,  the  pain  passes  into  mortification,  and,  do  what 
we  will,  we  can  feel  these  subtile  things  no  more.     Tor 


The  Presentiments  of  Youth,  325 

the  more  delicate  nerves  of  the  heart  do  not  bear  much 
playing  on.  They  are  killed  by  over-exercise,  and  with 
their  death  all  the  exquisiteness  of  life  passes  away ; — 
all  the  good  which  might  come  of  presentiment  of  sor- 
row is  lost. 

And  now,  to  tiini  round  our  thought,  if  the  cata- 
strophe which  we  imagine  should  really  come  in  the 
ensuing  year,  I  do  not  think  that  the  mode  of  living 
of  which  I  speak  is  a  bad  preparation  for  it.  '  For  such 
a  way  of  life  brings  three  things  with  it :  self-sacrifice 
in  thoughtfulness  for  others;  temperance  in  the  in- 
dulgence of  feeling ;  watchfulness  for  the  small  bless- 
ings of  life.  These  things  are  good  qualities  to  have 
when  suffering  sweeps  over  the  soul.  Sorrow  is  selfish, 
but  we  have  learnt  to  live  in  others,  and  watch  for  the 
love  of  others ;  sorrow  is  hardening  because  it  ei*- 
hausts  feeling,  but  we  have  learnt  to  be  temperate  in 
the  indulgence  of  feeling ;  sorrow  makes  life  a  darkness 
which  may  be  felt,  but  we  have  learnt  to  look  ibr  Grod's 
love  in  little  rays  of  light.  We  can  then  meet  cata- 
strophe and  make  progress  out  of  it.  And  it  ought  to 
minister  to  progress.  For,  as  I  have  said  already,  it 
upturns  the  soil  of  life  and  brings  new  elements  to 
the  surface.  We  see  this  even  in  the  outward  frame 
of  those  who  have  met  a  great  change  without  being 
crushed  or  hardened  by  it.  We  meet  them  after  the 
wave  of  pain  has  passed  over  them,  and  there  is  a  new 
expression  in  their  eye,  a  new  movement  upon  their  lip, 
a  new  distinction  on  the  brow  as  if  the  crown  of  thorns 
had  rested  there;  the  very  walk   has  a  new  dignity 


3^6  The  Presenthnents  of  YoidL 

and  tlie  attitude  a  new  intelligence.  They  are  changed, 
We  say. 

So  is  it  with  the  soul.  Subtile  changes  take  place 
within  it,  changes  for  good,  if  we  have  been  true  to  the 
manhood  of  Christ,  to  trust  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 
A  new  river  of  tenderness  has  broken  upwards  from 
the  under -ground  of  the  soul  and  flows  forth  to  fer- 
tilise the  older  thoughts  and  feelings  into  a  richer 
life,  with  new  colours  in  the  flowers  thej  bear.  The 
blood-red  plant  of  pain  grows  among  the  brighter 
flowers  of  our  happiness ;  but  its  presence  makes  us 
gentler  in  life,  more  dependent  upon  God  and  nearer 
to  Christ.  A  strange,  new  power  of  inward  tears 
softens  without  weakening  all  the  ruder  qualities  of 
our  nature.  Certain  sins,  certain  temptations,  cease 
altogether  to  trouble  us.  Some  way  or  other  they  have 
disappeared  for  ever.  We  are  less  worried  by  little 
things,  less  anxious  for  the  morrow,  less  absorbed  in 
the  present  world.  The  one  great  pain  has  freed  us 
from  smaller  pains ;  the  one  great  shadow  on  this 
world  has.  made  us  lift  our  eyes  to  the  eternal  shining 
of  the  other.  And  strange  to  say,  this  carelessness  of 
the  present  life  is  not  less  enjoyment,  less  delicacy  of 
happiness,  but  more;  for  the  carelessness  is  for  the 
ignoble  things — for  wealth,  and  the  passion  of  excite- 
ment ;  not  for  the  noble  things — for  delight  in  human 
greatness,  for  the  beauty  of  our  Father's  world,  for  the 
blessing  of  love  and  friendship.  These  being  seen  with 
new  feelings  are  seen  with  new  exquisiteness  in  them. 

Therefore,  if  you  be  destined  to  catastrophe,  let  it 
work  in  you  new  development.     Eem ember  we  are  not 


The  Presentiments  of  Yotith,  327 

left  alone  to  meet  our  sorrow.  One  is  with  us  who 
works  with  as.  Our  presentiment  may  be  His  note 
of  warning  to  His  child,  and  with  the  dark  prophecy 
is  linked  the  promise,  *  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always.' 

Secondly,  are  we  ready  for  the  progress  which  ought 
to  grow  out  of  joy  ?  We  look  forward  to  joy  this  year, 
but  there  can  be  no  progress  got  out  of  it  if  we  seek  to 
drain  it  dry  in  a  moment.  We  need  temperance  in  our 
delight.  Some  plunge  their  whole  face  into  the  rose 
of  joy,  and  become  drunk  with  the  scent,  but  in  doing 
so  they  crush  their  rose  and  break  it  from  its  stem. 
The  leaves  wither,  the  colour  dies,  the  freshness  of  the 
perfume  fades,  their  pleasure  is  gone. 

The  wiser  man  prefers  to  keep  his  rose  of  joy  upon 
its  stem ;  to  visit  its  beauty  not  all  at  once  but  day  by 
day,  that  he  may  have  it  cool  and  in  the  dew.  He 
likes  to  go  from  leaf  to  leaf,  understanding  the  indi- 
viduality of  every  petal,  slowly  increasing  pleasure,  till 
at  last  he  gets  to  the  heart  of  the  flower  and  possesses 
its  last  and  sweetest  odour.  In  this  way  all  the  past 
delights  which  he  has  had  from  leaf  to  leaf  are  kept,  and 
go  to  swell  the  perfect  enjoyment.  And  this  pleasure 
is  greater  than  his  who  has  crushed  his  pleasure  into  a 
moment,  for  it  is  more  experienced,  more  complex,  and 
more  delicate.  And  being  so,  it  also  possesses  per- 
manence. It  has  not  been  destroyed  by  intemperate 
handling.  It  is,  after  many  days,  as  fresh  as  when  its 
happy  finder  first  discovered  it.  And  if,  residing  at  its 
heart,  its  whole  influence  of  odour  and  colour  should 
threaten  to  grow  so  overpowering  as  to  make  satiety 
thereof  a  danger,  he.  leaves  the  central  cup  and  goes 


'328  The  Presentiments  of  Youth. 

back  to  wander  among  the  leaves  again,  till  re-enjoying 
the  lesser  delights,  he  can  take  back  a  quiet  heart  to 
re-enjoj  the  greatest. 

Suppose  a  new  friendship  enters  into  your  life.  If 
the  man  or  woman  is  worth  anything  to  you,  they 
ought  to  be  worth  a  great  deal.  They  ought  to  ad- 
vance and  quicken  your  development  as  you  theirs. 
They  ought  to  make  you  more  complex,  more  sympa- 
thetic with  the  great  Mankind.  One  knows — he  is  a 
poor  person  who  does  not — how  delightful  the  first 
rush  of  feeling  is,  when  as  yet  we  only  hope  we  have 
found  another  friend,  another  soul  which  can  touch  ours. 
Old  things  become  new ;  it  is  like  dew  upon  a  thirsty 
meadow.  Fresh  faculties  are  developed,  a  fresh  eagerness 
seizes  on  the  old.  The  dull  places  of  the  spirit  suffer 
an  enchantment.  Music — '  sounds  which  give  delight 
and  hurt  not ' — play  about  the  path  of  life.  We  look 
forward  to  exploring  a  new  soul,  as  men  who  have  found 
a  new  continent.  But,  if  led  by  this  early  impetuosity, 
we  rush,  without  any  waiting  thought,  into  the  world  on 
whose  verge  we  stand,  we  miss  all  the  good  of  it.  We 
neglect  the  delicate  shades  of  feeling  and  thought 
which  give  permanent  interest  to  a  character.  Our 
rush  is  wanting  in  reverence,  and  the  soul  we  attempt 
to  know  recoils  and  hides  itself.  We  seek  only  the  one 
great  point  of  character  which  attracts  us ;  we  attain  it 
and  it  is  all  over .  It  is  like  men  who,  inspired  by  the 
mountain  passion,  hurry  to  the  top  and  never  pause  by 
the  wayside  beauty  of  the  path.  They  come  down 
tired  out ;  they  have  learnt  nothing ;  they  go  away 
next  day. 


The  Presentiments  of  Youth,  329 

I  think  tliis  is  unbearable  intemperance  of  character ; 
it  is  worse;  it  is  an  insolence  done  to  the  natural 
privacy  of  the  soul ;  it  is  a  waste  of  the  blessing  and 
l>leasure  which  God  wished  to  give  us  in  friendship. 
There  is  no  progress  to  be  gained  from  it ;  no  lessons 
to  be  learnt,  no  new  elements  to  be  developed  in  us. 
We  lose  everything  by  hurry.  Above  all,  we  lose  our 
friends,  supposing  we  have  won  them  for  a  time.  They 
feel  that  there  has  been  no  real  comprehension  of  their 
character,  only  knowledge  of  one  or  two  things  in 
them.  They  will  slowly  fall  away  from  us,  they  cannot 
help  ib.  And  then,  when  all  has  been  lost,  the  punishment 
is  sharp.  We  feel  that  we  have  not  been  strong  enough 
to  win  or  keep  the  good  God  gave  us :  nor  can  we 
enjoy  the  memory  even  of  the  pleasure  we  have  had,  for 
unproductive  pleasure  leaves  pain  behind  it. 

It  is  the  wisdom  of  life,  on  the  contrary,  to  receive 
our  friends  as  from  the  hand  of  God,  and  to  give  to  the 
task  of  understanding  them  the  same  trouble  as  we  give 
to  the  comprehension  of  the  thoughts  of  God  in  nature ; 
to  work  out  the  drama  of  our  love  and  friendship  subject 
to  the  primary  feeling  in  the  mind  of  Christ,  reverence 
for  the  human  soul.  Then,  in  the  midst  of  the  new 
enjoyment  which  they  bring  us,  we  shall  find  additional 
power  of  progress,  and  the  delights  of  life  will  be  as  much 
an  element  of  our  evolution  towards  good  as  its  sorrows. 

Lastly,  we  look  forward  to  change,  sometimes  with 
exultation,  sometimes  with  dread ;  with  the  former  in 
youth,  with  the  latter  in  manhood. 

That  prophetic  joy  with  which  youth  foresees  and 
welcomes  change  of  light  and  shade  in  life,  and  happi-* 
15 


330  The  Presentiments  of  Yotitk. 

fiess  in  every  change — what  man  among  ns,  who  knows 
what  after-life  becomes,  would  rudely  dash  its  exultation  ? 
It  is  the  spring  vitality  which  sends  the  sap  streaming 
upwards  to  fill  to  overflowing  every  channel,  to  nourish 
the  remotest  fibre,  of  the  tree  of  life.  Make  the  most  of 
it,  lay  up  your  store  of  joy,  prophesy  a  famous  future 
in  a  golden  dream  of  hope,  for  the  power  does  not  come 
twice.  But  oh  !  keep  it  pure.  Let  thought  and  feeling, 
as  they  range  forward  in  triumph,  be  hallowed  by  the 
knowledge  that  you  are  the  child  of  God,  and  called  to 
be  His  servant  from  change  to  change.  Live  from  one 
varied  scene  to  another  as  if  you  felt  the  presence  of 
Him  who  is  with  you  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the 
world.  For  there  is  no  sadness  so  unutterable  as  that 
which  comes  of  the  self-destruction  of  our  youthful 
prophecies  ;  of  the  change  of  exultation,  as  years  go  on, 
into  slothfulness  and  depression.  It  is  a  terrible  thing 
to  look  back,  an  outworn  man,  upon  the  past  and  be 
ashamed  of  our  early  inspiration,  to  see  our  bright- 
haired  youth  go  by  us  like  a  phantom,  and  to  hide  our 
face  and  cry :  That  is  what  I  was,  what  might  I  not 
have  been  !  Once,  ^  bounded  in  .  a  nutshell,  I  could 
count  myself  a  king  of  infinite  space,  but  now  I  have 
bad  dreams.' 

There  are  some  who  fall  so  hopelessly  from  this  ideal 
that  there  is  nothing  more  for  them  in  this  life.  They 
must  wait  till,  transferred  to  a  fairer  clime,  they  have,  so 
to  speak,  another  chance.  But  for  others  who  still  retain 
enough  of  purity,  enough  of  vitality  to  begin  afresh, 
there  is  forgiveness  to  be  won ;  they  look  forward  unto 
change,  again.     But  they  have  received  a  rude  shock. 


TJie  Presentiments  of  Youth,  331 

and,  though  they  know  change  must  come,  so  much 
Las  gone  from  them,  that  it  is  no  longer  with  exulta- 
tion, but  with  a  kind  of  dread,  that  manhood  prefi- 
gures any  change  of  life.  We  fear  the  loss  of  interest 
in  existence,  the  decay  of  intellect,  the  coming  of 
satiety,  the  long  disease  of  age.  We  fear  still  more 
the  possible  approach  of  uniformity,  of  day  after  day 
the  same,  of  the  burden  and  apathy  of  decay.  We 
fear  change  for  the  losses  it  may  bring  if  it  shatter  us 
too  much,  yet  we  fear  the  absence  of  change  still  more. 
But  why  should  we  fear  when  He  is  with  us  always, 
even  to  the  end  ?  We  nourish  no  longer,  as  in  youth,  a 
proud  self-dependence.  We  have  a  spiritual  Presence 
within  us  whom  we  have  made  our  own,  and  whose 
dearest  work  is  our  development.  We  know  Him  -who 
went  from  change  to  change  and  in  whom  the  ideal  life 
grew  ever  brighter  to  the  close.  All  change  when  He  is 
present  is  advance.  One  after  one  we  lose  the  mortal  and 
the  visible,  but  we  gain  the  immortal  and  the  invisible. 
The  mountain-side  we  climb  grows  ever  more  and  more 
alone — still  more  desolate  of  the  things  we  once  loved 
so  dearly — but  we  are  nearer  at  every  step  to  heaven, 
and  One  waits  us  on  the  highest  peak  who  wiQ  renew  our 
strength.  The  landscape  of  our  youth  lies  far  below, 
and  the  shadows  fall  around  it.  We  see  but  faintly 
now  our  childhood's  home,  the  meadows  where  we 
played,  the  river  we  passed  in  boyhood,  the  path 
through  the  trees  where  we  began  to  climb  the  moun« 
tain.  These  things  seem  centuries  ago,  dead  in  the 
dead  past.  It  is  a  feeling  not  without  its  touch  of 
bitterness ;  but  let  us  but  have  heroism  of  heart  to  go 


332  The  Presentiments  of  Youth, 

on  alone,  and  trust  in  our  brother  Christ  enough  to 
lean  upon  his  secret  sympathy,  and  we  shall  hear  his 
voice  give  answer  to  our  heart :  '  Be  not  afraid,  it  is  I. 
Lo  !  I  am  with  you  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world.' 

Yes,  middle  age  has  come  upon  us,  and  we  need  a 
higher  help  than  our  own  will  to  meet  the  change  and 
chance  of  mortal  life.  They  must  come,  and  the  solemn 
question  is,  shall  we  be  able  to  conquer  their  evil,  have 
we  divine  life  enough  in  the  spirit  to  make  them  into 
means  of  advance  P  For  it  is  wise  to  remember  that  any 
change  may  be  our  overthrow. 

It  is  time,  then,  to  examine  into  our  readiness  for 
temptation.  Our  passions — are  they  under  our  com- 
mand ?  There  is  in  many  persons  a  curious  sense  of  un- 
awakened  capability  of  passion — and  a  fear  of  its  being 
awakened  in  a  wrong  direction.  They  have  lived  a 
peaceful,  self-restrained  life  for  years,  but  sometimes — 
in  a  moment — what  has  been  felt  as  a  dim  possibility 
becomes  a  reality.  A  torrent  force  of  passion,  in  some 
hour  of  change,  sweeps  over  life  and  for  a  time  masters 
and  enslaves  the  will. 

Is  our  will  in  order? — have  we  habituated  it  in 
the  power  of  Christ,  and  by  a  great  love  to  his  holi- 
ness, to  conquer  daily  the  motions  of  sin,  the  minor 
impulses  of  a  passionate  nature,  the  common  tempta- 
tions of  a  nature  apparently  cold?  It  is  this  habi- 
tual and  prayerful  preparation  which  is  the  only  sure 
one,  for  we  know  not  what  one  day  of  change  may 
bring  forth.  We  may  lose  in  a  week  the  fruit  of  the 
efforts  of  years.  And  it  is  terribly  hard  in  middle  life  to 
get  right  again ;  it  is  a  weary  struggle  then  to  redeem 


Tlie  Prcsenlimcnls  of  Youth.  333 

tlie  devastation  of  passion.  For  many  years  process 
is  at  an  end. 

It  is  the  same  with  other  things.  Our  love  of 
honesty  of  soul,  of  truth  to  our  own  convictions— w« 
are  ready  enough  to  make  our  boast  that  the  spirit  of 
the  world  cannot  touch  these  things.  Possibly  it  cannot, 
as  we  are  now.  But  if  a  sudden  change  take  place — if 
fortune  should  smile  in  a  moment  upon  us,  or  reputa- 
tion come  in  an  instant — our  self-confidence  is  but  poor 
protection.  Suppose  all  we  want  in  life,  our  highest 
aim,  that  position  in  which  we  think  we  can  do  most 
good  and  carry  out  the  ideas  of  a  lifetime,  were  ofiered 
us  to-morrow,  if  we  would  but  modify  a  few  prin- 
ciples and  forfeit  a  few  convictions — are  we  prepared 
for  that  ?  Not  so,  unless  we  have  realised  and  loved 
day  by  day,  with  prayer  and  humility,  the  truth  above 
all  things :  and  I  know  that  the  love  we  bear  to  truth  is 
firmest  when  it  is  borne  to  One  who  died  as  its  witness 
— to  One  who  is  the  truth,  and  therefore  can  give  the 
truth  to  men ;  to  One  who  has  promised  as  the  Truth 
to  be  with  us  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  middle  age,  if 
the  spirit  of  the  world  gets  hold  of  a  man  and  he 
is  false  to  God  and  his  own  soul,  he  is  fixed  in  degra- 
dation for  many  years  ;  or  the  agony  with  which  he  is 
redeemed  exhausts  life,  and  he  is  to  the  end  a  broken 
man. 

It  is  a  wonderful  drama  this  life  of  ours,  and  it 
is  infinitely  strange  to  separate  ourselves  at  times  from 
ourselves  and  look  on  as  a  spectator  only  at  our  own 
little  kingdom.     It    has    its  beginnings,    its  rightful 


334  1"^^  Presentiments  of  Youth. 

kings,  its  hours  of  mob-rule,  its  battles  for  existence, 
its  revolutions,  its  reorganisations,  its  usurpers,  its 
triumphs,  and  we  tremble  for  its  safety  .as  we  gaze. 
Will  it  get  out  of  all  its  trouble  and  change,  into  order 
and  peace  at  last  ?  At  first  we  cannot  tell.  We  rush 
back  and  unite  our  thought  to  ourselves  again,  and  it 
seems  that  nothing  can  be  done  in  the  darkness  and  the 
anarchy  of  life.  It  is  our  hour  of  depression.  The 
chamber  of  the  soul  is  '  hung  with  pain  and  dreams,' 
and  we  ourselves  feel  like  wafts  of  seaweed  swept  out 
to  sea  on  the  strong  tide  of  fate  into  the  midnight. 

But  stay; — are  we  so  alone,  so  unhelped,  so  for- 
gotten, so  feeble,  such  victims  of  blind  fate  ?  IN'ot  so, 
if  a  triumphant  humanity  has  lived  for  us — not  so,  if 
Christ  has  been  in  our  nature  bringing  into  it  the 
order  and  perfection  of  Divinit}'",  not  so  if  these  words 
have  any  value  :  '  Lo  !  I  am  with  you  always  ;'  for  then, 
we  are  in  Him,  and  to  be  in  Him  is  to  be  fated  to 
progress  passing  into  perfection,  for  we  are  Christ's, 
and  Christ  is  God's. 

Take  up  then  your  life  this  year,  through  catastrophe, 
through  joy,  through  change,  with  the  courage  of 
children  of  God ;  with  the  resolution  of  kings  who  wear 
the  crown,  and  assume  the  responsibilities  of  self- 
conquest  ;  with  faith  in  that  immortality  of  ours  in 
Christ,  the  awful  inspiration  of  which  dignifies,  impels, 
and  chastens  life ;  with  the  ineffable  comfort  of  the 
sympathy  and  strength  of  Him  whose  divine  Manhood 
is  with  us  and  all  our  brothers  always,  even  to  the 
end  of  the  world. 


TJie  Mid-day  of  Life,  335 


TRE  MID-DAY  OF  LIFR 

THE  TRANSITION  FROM  YOUTH   TO  MANHOOD. 

*  Remember  now  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy  youth,  while  the  evil 
days  come  not,  nor  the  years  draw  nigh,  when  thou  shalt  say,  I  have 
no  pleasure  in  them.' — Eccles.  xii.  1. 

There  are  some  summer  days  which  after  a  clear 
morning  pass  through  a  season  of  gloom.  The  sun 
hides  itself  behind  a  veil  of  cloud ;  depression  falls  on 
animals  and  plants.  AU  things  retire  into  themselves, 
.as  if  defrauded  by  the  morning  brightness.  The  day 
itself  seems  to  feel  that  it  has  not  fulfilled  the  prophecy 
of  its  dawning,  and  lies  heavily  upon  the  earth.  But 
it  is  only  for  a  time.  Just  as  the  manhood  of  the 
day  has  come,  it  conquers  its  early  suUenness — the 
clouds  disperse,  the  sun  breaks  out,  the  birds  resume 
their  song,  a  new  youthfulness  runs  through  the  trees. 

It  is  the  image  of  one  who,  having  in  later  youth 
passed  through  much  trouble,  and  lost  during  it  the 
use,  and  joy,  and  naturalness  of  youth,  recovers  these 
in  the  midst  of  manhood. 

There  are  other  summer  days  when  the  freshness 
has  been  more  or  less  constant,  when  the  sun  has 
never  altogether  hidden  its  light,  when  the  morning 
breeze  haa  gone  on  blowing  even  during  the  heat  of 


336  The  Mid-day  of  Life, 

noon,  wlien  noon  retains  so  niucli  of  moisture  tliat  the 
trees  do  not  droop  in  the  heat,  nor  the  animals  take  to 
shelter.  Afternoon  and  evening  come,  and  this  short 
stage  of  freshness  passes  away,  but  it  has  been  there. 

It  is  the  image  of  one  who  has  entered  on  manhood 
or  womanhood,  and  yet  has  retained  much  of  the 
fervour,  restlessness,  and  breezy  life  of  youth. 

There  are  other  summer  days  in  which  the  progress 
is  neither  broken  by  any  cloud,  nor  yet  delighted  by  any 
continuance  of  freshness.  When  mid-day  comes,  it 
absorbs  the  morning  and  all  its  elements.  ^It  is  dusty 
noontide,  warm,  full  of  work,  making  all  things  drink 
its  good,  passing  naturally  and  steadily  on  to  the  after- 
noon and  evening. 

It  is  the  image  of  those  who  have  absorbed  all  the 
elements  of  their  youth  when  they  enter  upon  manhood 
or  womanhood,  and  who  settle  down  steadily  to  the 
work  of  life. 

These,  then,  are  three  examples  out  of  many  of  the 
way  in  which  we  pass  from  youth  into  the  first  half  of 
middle  age,  and  through  the  porch  of  the  temple  of 
manhood  and  womanhood,  enter  into  the  nave.  It  will 
be  our  work  to-day  to  consider  them,  their  temptations, 
and  the  lessons  which  belong  to  them. 

1.  There  are  certain  characters  which  in  youth  lose 
part  of  their  youth.  Something  has  stepped  in  which 
has  spoilt  life.  Sorrow  or  overwork  has  taken  the 
edge  from  enjoyment  by  taking  away  physical  health ; 
a  gloomy  homd  has  repressed  enthusiasm;  a  wilful 
self-repression,  born  of  religious  asceticism,  or  of  the 
demands  of  exacting  friendship,  has  driven  so  deep  the 


The  Traiisiiion  froiu  youth  to  Manhood,  337 

springs  of  natural  feeling  that  with  all  their  innate 
force  they  cannot  rise  to  refresh  the  surface  of  the  heart. 
Sometimes  these  characters  never  recover :  the  process 
has  gone  too  far,  and  thej  will  never  taste  of  youth 
again  till  they  go  home  to  God.  Sometimes  they  turn 
to  fanaticism  and  become  the  curse  of  the  earth ;  but 
God,  who  knows  the  weakness  of  men,  will  be  just  to 
them — ^victims  of  fate— and  remember  that  they  are 
but  dust.  Sometimes  this  repression,  especially  when 
inflicted  by  religious  parents,  has  its  result  in  a  reaction 
against  the  tyranny  done  in  the  name  of  God,  and 
nature  crushed  in  its  natural,  breaks  out  in  unnatural 
channels.  The  man  becomes  a  blasphemer  and  a  pro- 
fligate. The  woman  flies  into  the  dissipation  of  the 
world,  or  meets  a  sadder  though  often  a  less  sinful  fate 
— the  easy  victim  of  one  of  those  men  who  make  the 
murder  of  womanhood  their  vile  trade  and  viler  pleasure. 

But  the  case  we  speak  of  first  is  a  happier  one  than 
these.  It  is  of  those  characters  who  after  repression, 
and  when  the  time  of  youth  is  past,  gi'ow  young  again. 
Some  blessed  circumstance,  some  new  affection,  some 
happier  climate  of  life  pierces  through  the  crust  to  the 
spring  of  youth  beneath,  and,  like  the  waters  of  that 
artesian  well  which,  coming  from  their  snowy  home 
among  the  mountains,  were  at  last  struck  in  the  midst 
of  the  American  desert  and  surging  upwards  turned  the 
wilderness  to  a  fruitful  field,  so  now,  in  such  characters, 
the  waters  of  a  hidden  life  of  youth  rush  upwards,  the 
more  abundant  from  their  long  suppression. 

It  comes  on  man  or  woman  with  a  shock  of  exquisite 
surprise.     They  feel  as  a  plant  might  feel,  which,  never 


338  The  Mid-day  of  Life. 

expecting  to  bloom,  opens  suddenly  in  the  midst  of  June 
its  flower-cups  to  the  soft  wind,  and  the  blue  sky,  and 
the  visits  of  the  birds  and  bees.  Existence  is  transfigured. 
The  soul  is  gifted  with  new  powers,  and  the  heart  with 
a  wealth  of  new  feelings.  They  cannot  help  making 
experiments  with  all  these  new  instruments.  Every 
day  is  delightful,  for  every  day  there  is  something  fresh 
to  be  tried,  and  the  life  of  living  seems  inexhaustible. 
Naturally,  there  is  a  dissipation  of  powers,* a  want  of 
concentration,  a  want  of  foresight,  and  these  things 
coming  in  the  midst  of  manhood  or  womanhood  are 
dangerous  to  progress. 

Again,  in  these  cases,  the  curious  thing  is  this — a 
thing  which  entangles  the  threads  of  life — that  the  rush 
of  youth  extinguishes  the  graver  and  sterner  qualities 
which  naturally  belong  to  manhood  and  womanhood, 
and  the  man  lives  with  the  qualities  of  the  youth,  and  by 
them,  and  the  woman  also.  They  grow  older  in  years, 
but  younger  in  nature,  and  the  man  does  man's  work 
with  a  boy's  heart,  and  the  woman,  .woman's  work  with 
a  girl's  feelings.  A  few  quaint  temptations  beset  such 
persons.  They  are  sometimes  seized  with  a  sudden 
passion  to  throw  by  work  altogether,  like  a  schoolboy, 
and  to  run  away,  and  it  is  almost  a  physical  pain  to 
resist  this  temptation.  Yery  often  all  the  work  of  the 
world  seems  as  ridiculous  to  them  as  it  does  to  a  child, 
and  to  enjoy  the  only  really  right  thing  in  life.  They 
suffer,  and  not  a  little,  from  the  want  of  fitness  between 
their  inner  life  and  their  outer  work,  and  the  suffering 
makes  them  impatient,  and  impatience  spoils  their  work. 
Their  heart  is  so  open  to  new  impressions  that,  almost 


The  Transition  from  Youth  to  Manhood,  339 

like  a  child,  they  take  up  one  pursuit  after  another  and 
finish  none,  the  impression  of  the  present  being  so 
strong  that  they  cannot  resist  it.  Of  course  all  this 
produces  a  certain  amount  of  unfitness  for  the  world 
and  for  their  daily  labour,  so  that  their  fellow-workers 
think  them  unsafe,  imprudent,  and  their  leaders,  if  they 
belong  to  a  party,  set  them  aside  as  incapable  of 
discipline.  The  best  thing  about  them  is  not  only 
their  freshness — so  that  meeting  them  is  like  ifleeting 
a  sparkling  stream  on  a  thirsty  day — but  also  their 
natural  individuality.  They  cannot  get  into  the  groove 
of  things. 

Now,  what  is  it  that  they  want  ? — for  it  is  plain  that 
the  inevitable  fault  of  such  characters  is  the  dissipa- 
tion of  thought,  energy,  and  life.  They  want  concentra- 
tion of  will  towards  a  single  and  a  noble  aim ;  not  such 
a  concentration  as  will  destroy  their  youthful  feeling 
or  injure  their  originality — for  the  very  fact  of  that 
originality  in  the  midst  of  a  world  enslaved  to  customs 
is  more  than  other  men's  work — but  a  concentration 
which  will  leave  their  nature  free,  and  yet  make  its 
freedom  strong  through  the  rule  of  law. 

We  seek  this  concentration  in  one  aim  after  another. 
But  there  is  always  the  chance  of  failure,  and  failure 
is  followed  by  despondency,  and  despondency  imprisons 
energy,  and  life  is  spoilt.  Or  the  aim  becomes  stained 
with  a  mean  or  selfish  motive,  and  we  are  then  haunted 
with  the  sense  of  something  radically  wrong  in  us  which 
strangles  all  endeavour,  and  so  drift  back  into  oiir 
aimless  roving  life  again. 

We  want  an  aim  which  never  can  g^ow  vile,  an  aim 


340  The  Mid-day  of  Life, 

wliicli  cannot  disappoint  our  hope.  There  is  but  one 
on  earth,  and  it  is  that  of  being  like  God.  He  who 
strives  after  nnion  with  the  perfect  Love  must  grow 
out  of  selfishness,  and  the  nobility  of  the  strife  makes 
meanness  impossible.  And  as  to  failure,  failure  is  out 
of  the  question ;  our  success  is  secured  in  the  omnipo- 
tent Holiness  of  God. 

Concentrate,  then,  your  will  on  this.  Do  not  wish, 
but  will  to  be  at  one  with  God.  'Ask,  and  ye  shall 
receive  ;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find.' 

The  habit  of  concentration  won  in  this  spiritual 
realm,  where  prayer  brings  success,  soon  extends  itself 
to  the  realm  of  intellectual  and  practical  life.  Your 
youthfulness  of  spirit  is  not  destroyed,  but  a  centre  of 
strength  is  given  to  its  feelings  and  its  acts.  ISTor  is 
the  number  of  objects  and  of  interests  which  you  have, 
and  which  give  charm  and  variety  to  life,  limited  by 
this  spiritual  concentration  of  the  being  towards  God ; 
on  the*  contrary,  you  gain  a  power  of  harmonising  them 
into  order  under  the  rule  of  a  leading  and  noble  idea. 
Your  originality  is  not  lessened,  but  increased,  for  it 
is  revealed  to  us  that  a  special  work  of  God's  Spirit  is 
the  development  of  the  peculiar  gifts  of  each  man. 

The  second  case  I  speak  of  is  of  characters  which, 
passing  into  manhood  and  womanhood,  retain  for  many 
years  the  elements  of  youth.  This  differs  from  the 
first,  inasmuch  as  youth  has  not  been  repressed,  but 
previously  enjoyed.  Hence  the  youthfulness  of  these 
persons  is  not  so  young  as  that  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking,  and  it  is  mingled  naturally  with  the 
graver  and  steadier  thoughts  of  advancing  years.     As 


The  Transition  from  Youth  to  Manliood.  341 

the  chief  danger  of  the  former  is  dissipation  of  character, 
the  chief  danger  of  the  latter  lies  in  over-fervency  of 
character.  One  knows  them  by  their  sudden  eagerness 
when  interested,  and  by  the  ease  with  which  they  are 
interested ;  by  the  way  in  which  their  nature  breaks  into 
flower  at  the  touch  of  sympathy ;  by  the  rapid  intensify- 
ing of  all  their  powers  and  feelings  when  they  feel  them- 
selves liked  and  comprehended,  so  that  they  are  much 
greater  and  better  at  one  hour  than  at  another ;  by  the 
passion  which  they  put  into  common  things,  and  the 
way  in  which  they  exhaust  on  small  work  far  more 
force  than  is  needed.  One  knows  them  by  their  quick- 
ness, and  by  the  half-shame  which  touches  them  when 
they  have  been  over-quick  in  thought ;  by  their  delight- 
ful unconsciousness,  and  by  their  quick  repression  of 
feeling  when  they  become  suddenly  self-conscious,  their 
whole  expanded  leaves  closing  in  a  moment ;  by  the 
intensity  also  of  their  self- consciousness  when  they 
have  fallen  into  it.  One  knows  them  by  their  exagge- 
rated contempt  for  form  and  their  exaggerated  love  for 
the  informal ;  by  their  love  of  theories,  and  their  im- 
patience and  distress  when  either  their  theories  are 
opposed  by  others,  or  they  themselves  are  prevented  by 
circumstances  from  realising  them  ;  by  their  harshness 
in  speaking  of  those  who  are  commonplace;  by  their 
impetuosity  in  reply,  and  the  way  in  which  contradic- 
tion astonishes  them ;  by  their  frequent  one-sidedness, 
for  their  convictions  are  so  strong  that  they  can  sel- 
dom see  the  force  of  opposite  convictions ;  by  the  want 
of  form  in  what  they  do  and  say ;  by  a  certain 
inarticulateness;  by    a   certain  want  of  finish.      One 


342  The  Mid-day  of  Life. 

knows  them  by  sudden  fits  of  weariness  of  existence 
and  of  sadness,  during  which  life  is  seen  as  preterna- 
turallj  dark,  so  that  older  persons  smile ;  by  the  way 
in  which  sorrow  when  it  comes  surprises  them,  and  joy 
when  it  comes  gives  no  surprise  ;  by  the  way  in  which 
they  trade  upon  their  health  as  if  it  were  inexhausti- 
ble, and  on  feeling  as  if  its  enthusiasm  could  have  no 
reaction. 

All  this  is  complicated  by  the  graver  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  manhood  and  womanhood,  vy^hich  in  this 
case  we  have  conceived  as  existing  side  by  side  with 
youth  and  its  fervour. 

For  the  very  presence  of  this  young  enthusiasm 
makes  depression  darker  when  it  comes  spiritually  with 
doubt,  or  physically  with  exhaustion.  As  the  brightest 
flowers  look  the  dismallest  upon  dark  days,  so  the 
brightest  natures  are  the  gloomiest  when  things  go 
very  wrong.  In  the  hour  of  their  depression  the  re- 
covery of  belief  in  God  seems  impossible,  the  toil  of  life 
unbearable.  The  awful  shadow  of  the  unknown  lies 
heaviest  on  these ;  they  feel  the  darkness  more,  and 
question  it  more  bitterly.  When  they  sin  against 
their  Father,  their  remorse  is  so  keen  that  sin  seems 
unforgivable.  As  kind  as  God  seems  when  they  are 
happy  and  excited,  so  severe  does  He  seem  when  they 
are  unhappy.  Excessively  in  enthusiasm  for  work  when 
all  goes  well,  they  are  beyond  just  measure  chilled  when 
all  goes  ill.  Necessarily  they  are  victimised  by  fluctua- 
tions of  feeling,  and  in  these  fluctuations  the  force  of 
will  is  in  abeyance.  They  become  at  last,  if  they 
do  not  take  care,  like  seaweed  tossed  on  the  ocean,  the 


The  Transilioii  J)  oni  Youth  to  Manhood.  343 

mere  sport  of  circumstances,  *  weak  as  is  a  breaking 
wave.' 

Now  what  we  want  in  this  case  is  not  the  rooting  out 
of  youthful  enthusiasm,  but  its  direction. 

Endeavour  to  make  your  enthusiasm  self-restrained. 
The  reason  of  all  these  depressions,  and  the  weakness 
which  follows  on  a  succession  of  excitements  and  reac^ 
tions,  is,  that  we  allow  our  fervour  to  run  wild  without 
a  curb.  It  exhausts  itself,  and  when  trial  comes  or 
doubts  attack  us  we  have  no  force  left  to  meet  them. 
At  once  we  drop  into  feebleness  and  melancholy. 

Begin  to  win  the  power  of  will  over  enthusiasm  in 
the  sphere  of  your  spiritual  life.  Power  of  will  comes 
to  man  when  he  claims  and  makes  by  faith  the  Will 
of  God  as  his  own.  Power  of  self-restraint  is  gained 
when  a  man  so  loves  the  perfection  of  Christ  that  he 
cannot  allow  himself  to  run  *  into  every  excitement. 
He  stops  and  asks  himself,  *  Would  my  Master  have 
done  this  ? — would  He  have  smiled  upon  it  ?  ' 

A  few  years  of  this  reference  of  life  to  Him,  and 
life  is  no  longer  a  mere  field  of  unrestrained  abandon- 
ment to  feeling ;  we  begin  to  realise  our  difficulties,  and 
what  those  words  mean,  '  Can  ye  drink  of  the  cup  which 
I  drink  of? '  We  feel  that  we  shall  want  all  the  ardour 
we  possess  for  the  long  contest  against  evil,  for  the 
race  home  to  God.  We  learn  to  economise  our  force  of 
enthusiasm,  to  keep  it  stored  up  against  the  day  of  the 
cross.  We  solemnly  dedicate  our  life  in  prayer  to  our 
Divine  Father,  and  ask  of  Him  not  to  take  away  our 
fervour,  but  to  double  it,  by  giving  us  the  righteous 
will  which  rules  it  nobly. 


344  ^'^^  Mid-day  of  Life. 

The  result  will  be,  not  the  loss  of  youthful  ardour, 
hut  the  addition  to  it,  by  the  will,  of  strength  and  calm. 
Difficulty  will  not  depress  it,  but  heat  it  to  a  white 
heat ;  doubt  will  only  stir  it  into  regulated  action ;  for 
its  source  no  longer  is  in  ourselves  alone,  but  in  the 
uncreated  fire  of  the  love  of  God. 

Then,  having  ennobled  and  disciplined  spiritual  fer- 
vour, all  other  sources  of  enthusiasm  will  be  ennobled  with 
it.  It  will  never  permit  them  to  be  exhausted.  Alwaj^s 
directing  them  to  perfect  aims,  they  will,  in  pursuit 
of  these,  absorb  instead  of  losing  new  force ;  for  en- 
thusiasm which  feeds  on  noble  objects  redoubles  its 
force  as  much  as  enthusiasm  which  feeds  on  ignoble 
objects  exhausts  its  force. 

Have,  therefore,  true  and  sublime  ideals  for  your 
youthful  fervour.  These  will  preserve  it  to  old  age. 
Aspire  ardently  after  truth,  purity,  many-sided  charity, 
holiness  of  life ;  let  everything  else  be  put  under  these 
things.  Be  convinced  of  great  truths,  feel  in  the 
^depths  of  your  heart  their  beauty  and  their  force.  Be 
able  to  say,  '  I  know  that  God  is  my  Father,  and  the 
Father  of  mankind ;  I  know  that  the  world  and  I  have 
a  Eedeemer  from  evil;  I  know  that  mankind  has 
been  made  Divine  in  Christ;  I  know  that  there  is  a 
Divine  Spirit  in  me  and  in  Mankind,  who  is  educating 
us  towards  the  perfect  life.  I  know  One  who  is  the 
E-esurrection  and  the  Life  to  all  mankind.'  You  can- 
not  be  convinced  of  mighty  truths  like  these  without 
being  set  on  fire  by  them,  and  the  fire  will  kindle  every 
intellectual  and  imaginative  enthusiasm  which  you 
possess  into  an  abiding  ardour  of    action  so  instinct 


Tlie  Transition  from  Youth  to  Manhood.  345 

with  that  from  which  it  flowed  that  it  will  propagate 
the  sacred,  energy  and  set  others  on  fire  with  the  same. 
In  this  manner  seek  to  correct  and  develope  your  youth- 
fulness  of  nature  in  the  midst  of  advancing  years.  By 
and  by  calm  will  come — not  the  calm  of  stagnation,  but 
the  calm  which  sits  in  the  midst  of  intensity  of  feeling. 
That  which  disturbs  and  tosses  our  unregulated  enthu- 
siasm is  vanity — desire  of  fame — the  intruding  element 
of  personal  interests.  Our  fervour  of  spirit  becomes 
quiet,  yet  strong,  when  its  highest  impulse  is  beyond 
ourselves,  when  we  can  ^n  our  most  ardent  wishes 
upon  Christ,  and  find  in  Him  the  source  of  a  sus- 
tained aspiration.  For  it  is  not  only  truths  which 
inspire  us,  but  truths  embodied  in  One  whom  we  can 
love.  Pride,  selfishness,  want  of  charity,  may  creep  in 
when  we  devote  ourselves  to  noble  ideas  alone.  But 
when  we  love  them  in  a  perfect  Person  who  loves  us,  self 
and  conceit  are  wholly  lost,  and  in  their  loss  calm  is 
made  co-ordinate  with  ardent  feeling. 

The  third  and  last  case  we  mentioned  was  that  of 
characters  who  pass  steadily  from  youth  to  manhood, 
leaving  their  youth  behind  them. 

These  settle  down  quietly  to  work.  They  have  but 
little  ardour  of  nature;  they  are  not  led  astray  by  the 
vagaries  of  reappearing  youth.  They  enter  on  their 
chosen  business,  and  do  it  steadily  from  day  to  day — the 
man  his  work,  the  woman  hers. 

Their  tendency,  since  they  have  no  youthfulness  to 
complicate  their  nature,  is  to  become  men  and  women 
of  one  dominant  idea — to  let  their  particular  business  or 
profession  absorb  all  the  energies  of  their  nature  into 


346  The  Mid-day  of  Life. 

itself,  so  that  one  j)ortioii  of  their  character  is  especially 
developed  and  the  other  portions  left  untrained.  Like 
Aaron's  serpent,  it  swallows  all  the  rest.  They  become, 
in  this  way,  incomplete  men.  It  is  said,  and  with 
general  truth,  that  for  a  great  success  in  life  this  absorp- 
tion is  necessary.  But  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
a  great  success  is  not  dearly  purchased  at  the  price  of 
an  imperfect  manhood — whether  success  is  the  chief 
thing  in  life.  Very  successful  persons  are  for  the  most 
part  not  men  one  would  choose  for  companions  in  a 
voyage,  or  for  friends  in  the  greater  voyage  of  life. 
They  want  variety,  they  want  animation,  they  are  too 
often  the  sated  worshippers  of  their  own  success.  And 
what  they  often  are  to  us  they  are  in  reality  in  relation  to 
themselves — not  men,  but  the  tenth  or  twentieth  part  of 
a  man.  But  this  is  not  only  true  of  men  who  succeed, 
but  also  of  those  who  are  not  successful,  yet  plod  on — 
men  and  women  only  of  one  aspiration,  of  one  business, 
like  those  who  spend  all  their  life  in  making  the  heads 
of  pins. 

It  is  wise  to  let  something  of  success  go,  not  to  be 
anxious  even  about  becoming  either  the  first  merchant 
or  the  first  pointer  of  pins,  in  order  that  you  may  be 
able  to  train  yourself  into  a  more  perfect  man.  Do  not 
leave  your  imagination  without  its  food,  or  starve  your 
heart.  He  is  but  a  poor  creature,  however  famous  in 
his  own  peculiar  walk,  who  is  the  slave  of  figures,  or 
of  science,  or  of  politics — machines  for  turning  out 
machine  work.  Men  ought  not  to  be  steam-engines, 
nor   to  work  like  them,   though  that  seems  to  be  a 


The  Transition  from  Youfh  fo  Afan/iood,   347 

prevalent  notion.  They  are  bom  to  love  imd  feel,  to 
imagine  and  aspire. 

Nor,  above  all,  should  we  let  the  world  and  its  work 
quench  the  demands  of  the  spirit  within  us  which  desires 
union  with  the  living  God.  If  you  allow  the  noise  of 
your  enthralling  business  to  drown  those  inward  cries, 
they  grow  fainter  then  and  fainter,  and  the  spirit  falls 
into  lethargy.  The  noblest  portion  of  your  being  is  left 
ignorant  as  an  infant.     Is  that  to  be  a  complete  man  ? 

Feed  that  immortal  thing  with  its  true  food,  love  to 
God,  which  is  love  to  God's  character  in  Christ ;  open  its 
doors  to  the  education  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  be  not 
troubled  but  rather  nobly  proud,  if  your  spirit,  trained 
by  His  power,  prevent  some  of  those  many  transac- 
tions in  public  life  which  make  a  fortune  by  running 
to  the  very  edge  of  dishonesty,  or  hinder  you  from 
taking  a  place  the  comfort  of  which  would  have  to  be 
bought  by  the  sacrifice  of  convictions.  A  fortune — a 
position — these  are  not  the  first  things,  in  spite  of  the 
lying  world  which  says  they  are.  The  spirit  which  can 
hold  fast  to  truth,  though  it  means  the  acceptance  of 
ruin — ^the  spirit  which  can  refuse  to  be  enriched  at  the 
expense  of  honour — the  spirit  which  can  do  nothing 
which  sins  against  its  neighbour,  is  better  than  the  life 
of  Dives  or  the  leadership  of  the  fashionable  world. 

Educate  all  your  being,  for  being  devoid  of  the  ardour 
of  youth,  and  believing  in  steady  work,  you  are  in  danger 
of  becoming  a  one-sided  man.  Let  your  effort  be  to  bo 
manifold  and  many-sided,  while  you  cling  fast  to  your 
particular  work.   This  is  our  Christian  duty.    For  Christ 


34^  The  Mid-day  of  Life. 

came  to  save  the  whole  of  our  nature,  to  present  us,  at 
the  end,  bodj,  soul,  and  spirit,  perfect  to  his  Father. 

Lastly,  our  religious  life  settles  down  into  a  matter 
of  habit  as  we  pass  into  manhood  and  womanhood,  and 
this,  though  coming  first  to  those  who  have  not  re- 
tained youth,  becomes  at  last  the  case  of  the  others 
also.     I  speak,  then,  to  all. 

Our  morality  becomes  fixed.  Truth,  purity,  and  the 
rest  become  habits,  like  the  habit  of  walking.  Beware 
lest  they  become  Pharisaic,  and  pass  from  habits  into 
mere  forms.  There  is  but  one  way  of  avoiding  this, 
and  that  is  by  cherishing  a  great  ideal  which  will  not 
let  us  be  satisfied.  Christ  gives  us  that  ideal :  '  Be  ye 
therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  per- 
fect.' And  He  Himself  supplies  the  motive,  for  the 
great  love  which  we  nourish  to  Him  will  sweep  us  con- 
tinually out  of  the  region  of  formal  morality  into  that 
realm  where  the  life  of  self-sacrifice  produces  natural 
and  noble  action. 

Our  views  of  truth  become  fixed.  Only  beware  of  hold- 
ing them  as  if  they  were  the  real  essences  of  which  they 
are  only  the  forms.  Be  ready  to  change  them  if  you 
find  it  necessary  for  the  progress  of  your  spiritual  life 
that  the  essential  truths  you  hold  should  wear  new 
garments. 

Our  inner  religious  life  becomes  necessarily  more  fixed, 
more  a  matter  of  continuous  and  quiet  exercise,  and 
less  a  matter  of  sudden  and  enthusiastic  feeling.  We 
cannot  help  sometimes  regretting  this  and  fancying 
that  because  we  do  not  feel  so  keenly,  we  are  less  near 
God,  more  near  the  world.     We  shall  never  feel  so 


The  Transition  from  i  'ohI/i  to  Man/wod,  349 

deeply  again,  we  think — never  recall  those  hours  when 
life  seemed  for  a  time  to  breathe  the  air  of  heaven  itself. 
But  in  no  case  are  we  right  to  waste  time  on  such  re- 
grets. Our  business  now  is  to  go  forward  and  to  redeem 
the  past.  We  may  not  get  back  the  freshness  of  early 
inspiration ;  but  we  may  attain  something  better — the 
resolute  heart  of  noble  faith,  which,  trusting  in  a 
Saviour  of  men,  has  the  confidence  to  take  up  duty  for 
his  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  men  his  brothers,  and, 
though  failure  and  failure  come,  to  win  at  last,  through 
the  doing  of  duty,  those  profounder,  calmer,  and  more 
enduring  feelings  of  nearness  to  God,  "\fiiich  will  bear 
the  test  of  time  and  overcome  at  the  end  the  shame 
and  fear  of  death. 

But,  after  all,  were  our  religious  feelings  in  youth 
deeper  than  those  which  we  possess  now  ?  Unless  we 
have  been  alt<]^ther  going  back,  I  cannot  think  so. 
They  seem  to  us  now,  as  we  look  back,  to  have  been 
deeper ;  but  they  only  seem  so.  In  reality,  it  is  because 
we  feel  more  keenly  and  more  strongly  now,  that  we 
so  canonise  our  youthful  feelings.  We  impute  to 
them,  unconsciously,  our  present  depth  and  strength  of 
passion.  We  retain  in  memory  the  religious  impres- 
sions of  our  early  life,  and  we  colour  them  with  our  own 
deeper  hues,  till  they  seem  much  more  earnest  and 
divine  than  they  really  were. 

The  fact  is,  youth  cannot  feel  so  deeply  as  man- 
hood and  womanhood,  unless  manhood  and  womanhood 
have  been  debased  and  hardened.  Is  not  doubt  of 
God's  love  a  worse  thing  to  us  now  than  it  was  when 
we   were  young?      Is  not  the  cry  of  our  hearts  for 


350  The  Mid-day  of  Life, 

# 

liglit  more  unutterable  now  than  in  the  days  when  it 

came  and  went  so  quickly?  Is  not  our  hatred  of 
sin,  and  our  desire  to  escape  from  the  dreadful  circle 
of  self  into  life  with  God  and  love  of  all  in  Christ, 
more  intense,  though  far  more  silent,  than  it  was  of 
old  ?  Is  not  our  longing  for  certainty,  for  the  assurance 
of  the  eternal  life  in  union  with  our  Father,  more  pro- 
found as  we  advance  in  years  ?  Have  not  this  world  and 
its  worldliness,  though  perhaps  we  live  more  in  them, 
less  power  over  us  ?  It  is  not  that  we  feel  less,  but 
that  the  movement  of  our  feelings  is  larger,  and  their 
waters  so  deepithat  they  are  less  easily  disturbed. 

But,  after  all,  whether  we  feel  much  or  little  is  not 
so  much  matter.  The  one  thing  needful  for  those  who 
have  passed  into  the  stage  of  life  which  follows  upon 
youth  is  to  do  the  wiU  of  God,  to  consecrate  their 
manhood  and  womanhood  to  the  welHtre  of  Man,  to 
look  forward  to  finishing  the  work  given  them  to  do, 
and  at  last,  to  the  rest  which  remaineth  for  the  people 
of  God. 


TIu  Afternoon  of  Life.  351 


TRE  AFTERNOON  OF  LIFE. 

THE  BSSIOBATIOIT  OK  THE  INTERESTS  AWD   POETBY  07  YOUTH. 

*  Who  satisfieth  thy  mouth  with  good  things ;  so  that  thy  youth  is 
renewed  like  the  eagle's.' — Psalm  ciii.  5. 

The  afternoon  of  life  is  marked  by  the  concentration 
of  our  powers  round  one  centre  of  work  and  thought. 
In  youth,  at  our  j&rst  entrance  into  manhood,  we  take  up 
many  interests,  we  make  experiments  upon  our  faculties 
and  on  many  subjects,  and  so  vivid  is  our  force,  and 
so  large  our  heart,  that  we  seem  to  have  room  for  all. 

One  by  one,  most  of  these  interests  die  away.  We 
discover  our  inability  to  carry  them  further  than  a  short 
way,  or  we  cease  to  care  to  do  so.  As  our  character 
developes,  many  are  seen  to  be  out  of  harmony  with  it, 
or  even  to  check  its  natural  movement  onwards ;  but 
they  are  useful  in  telling  us  what  we  cannot  do  and 
what  we  can.  At  last  one  or  two  take  special  power 
over  us,  and  absorb  the  rest.  If  they  grow  naturally 
out  of  our  character,  if  they  are  fitted  to  our  powers 
as  the  sword  is  to  the  hand,  our  life  flows  smoothly 
to  its  end.  K  they  are  imposed  on  us  by  coercion 
of  others,  or  of  circumstances — and  in  such  a  light  we 
are  forced  to  regard  the  life^of  some  in  this  crooked 
world — our  life  is  injured  and  our  course  rugged  and 


352  The  Afternoon  of  L ife. 

painful  to  the  close.  Biit^  whether  our  fate  be  one  or 
the  other,  few  of  us  have  reached  the  later  manhood 
without  finding  ourselves  fixed  in  one  pursuit.  The 
traveller  in  the  Alps  walking  in  the  early  morning  and 
seeing  the  white  clouds  change  around  a  mountain-peak, 
cannot  distinguish  at  a  distance  which  is  the  summit 
and  which  the  cloud.  Kow  one  form  and  now  another 
attracts  his  eager  gaze.  But  as  the  sun  climbs  the 
heaven,  it  lifts  the  wreathing  vapour,  and,  drawing 
nearer,  he  sees  at  last,  sharply  defined  against  the  pure 
sky,  the  one  clear  cone.  So  the  voyager  of  life  delights 
himself  in  cloud  after  cloud  in  the  morning  of  his  years ; 
but  when  the  afternoon  has  come,  the  one  thing  he  has 
to  do  distinctly  opens  forth,  and  challenges  his  efPort. 

He  finds  the  work  of  his  life.  At  once  all  his  powers 
concentrate  themselves  on  this,  and  force,  once  scattered 
over  a  hundred  interests,  intensifies  itself  on  one.  It 
is  then  that  life  becomes  strong,  for  life  is  at  unity  with 
itself. 

And  now,  having  found  our  work  and  settled  down  to 
climb  the  mountain  steadily,  there  is  a  further  question. 
What  spirit  is  at  the  centre  of  our  life  ?  Whence  do 
we  draw  the  inspiration  of  effort?  What  is  the  mo- 
tive power  which  influences  and  colours  all  our  work? 
Does  it  depend  on  self  or  on  Christ  ?  It  is  a  solemn 
question,  for  the  answer  defines  whether  the  real  labour 
of  life  will  be  eternal  or  not,  useful  to  man  or  not,  a 
source  of  growth  or  not  to  our  own  being. 

And  when  I  ask  this  question  in  this  relation,  I  really 
mean  whether  a  man's  life  has  beyond  its  special  aim 
a  further  aim   of  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Man.     I 


Restoration  of  Interests  and  Poetry  of  Youth,  353 

mean  here  by  the  spirit  of  Christ  the  spirit  which  sub- 
ordinates life  to  the  cause  of  man,  for  that  was  the 
central  spirit  of  Christ's  existence.  And  something  more 
I  mean.  I  mean  that  he  who  sees  the  Eace  in  Christ 
sees  it  at  one  with  God  in  idea  though  not  as  yet  in 
fiict,  and  beholds  himself  as  one  of  a  great  and  united 
body  who  are  here  on  earth  to  slowly  grow  up  into 
union  with  God  by  faithful  work — by  long  effort  at 
last  to  realise  that  idea  which  God  had  of  the  full- 
grown  Man,  and  which  Christ  now  represents  in  God. 

The  man,  then,  who  has  Christ  at  the  centre  of  his  life 
— that  is,  the  great  ideas  of  which  Christ  is  the  personal 
realisation — cannot  settle  down  into  the  dulness  of  man- 
hood, content  to  lose  altogether  the  things  which  made 
his  youth  so  bright  and  happy.  He  desires  to  grow,  and 
to  grow  by  regaining  these  in  a  truer  and  more  lasting 
form.  He  cannot  abide  in  that  spirit  of  selfishness 
which,  by  fixing  our  thoughts  on  personal  success  alone, 
forbids  us  to  turn  aside  to  seek  in  work  for  man  higher 
thoughts  to  transfigure  our  life,  or  to  refresh  oui*selves 
with  the  poetical  aspects  of  man  or  nature.  'These 
things  are  unpractical,'  says  self;  Hhese  things  are 
necessary  for  your  true  manhood,'  replies  the  spirit  of 
Christ. 

How  may  we  recover  in  manhood,  but  in  a  wiser 
way,  what  was  noble  in  our  youth — recover  our  mani- 
fold interests,  our  poetic  feeling  towards  the  history  of 
man  and  nature — our  ideal  of  the  goodness,  truth,  and 
love  of  man  ? 

The  first  two  -svill  form  the  subject  of  this  morning's 
Bermon;  the  last  the  subject  for  next  Sunday. 
16 


354  ^'^^  Afternoon  of  L  ife. 

1.  The  restoration  of  manifold  interests, 
I  liave  said  that  in  settling,  into  the  groove  of  life 
we  lose  variety  of  interests.  And  the  danger  is  lest,  in 
clJJiging  close  to  one  alone,  we  develope  only  one  part 
of  our  being.  The  student  who  pulls  his  philosophic 
bonnet  over  his  ears  that  he  maj  hear  nothing  but'  the 
whispers  of  the  Ego ;  the  scientific  man  to  whom  there 
is  nothing  in  the  world  but  his  flint  flakes  or  his  gases  \ 
the  theologian  who  buries  himself  in  his  speculations, 
forget  •  that  thej  themselves  are  greater  than  these 
things,  and  that  man  is  infinitely  greater.  They  hoard 
up  a  little  knowledge,  but  they  die  with  only  one  mem- 
ber of  their  nature  developed,  and  that  abnormally, 
and  their  usefulness  to  others  has  been  almost  a  cipher. 
It  is  far  worse  when  the  object  pursued  is  something 
which,  pursued  for  itself  alone,  is  base — money,  rank, 
position  in  society,  fame,  things  which  have  no  worth 
unless  they  are  used  for  men. 

If  the  spirit  of  self  is  at  the  centre  of  your  life, 
there  is  no  doubt  of  your  success  in  attaining  these 
things,  and  the  success  you  win  increases  the  selfish 
spirit,  till  at  last  you  gain  the  world  and  lose  your 
true  being.  All  the  way  up  the  mountain  of  life  you 
see  nothing  but  one  object.  N'o  wayside  beauty  of  the 
path  attracts  you ;  those  whom  you  meet  do  not  draw 
you  to  their  side  in  friendship,  sincere  and  deep ;  none 
of  the  bright  interests  which  played  around  your  early 
life  and  gave  it  variety  and  charm  now  touch  your 
imagination.  There  is  no  denying  that  this  life  ia 
dull.  One  has  a  monotonous  interest  in  going  on, 
enough  to  keep  one  alive;  or  one  has  a  fierce  gam- 


Restoration  of  Interests  and  Poetry  of  Youth,  355 

bling  interest,  which  eats  at  the  heart  of  life  like  the 
worm  which  dieth  not,  and  wearies  even  more  than 
dulness.  But  there  is  no  true  life — no  harmonious 
movement  of  all  the  parts  of  the  character  onwards  and 
together — no  dramatic  clash  of  opposed  and  changing 
feeling — no  colour  nor  light  made  by  the  play  of  many 
trained  faculties  upon  one  another.  The  spirit  of  self 
has  been  the  chief  impulse,  and  naturally  life  is  joyless. 
All  thought  has  knotted  itself  round  yourself  and 
your  family,  and  there  is  no  feeling,  freshening  and 
universal,  such  as  is  stirred  in  the  heart  when  great 
human  interests  carry  us  out  of  self.  True,  you  succeed. 
Self,  self-devoted,  is  sure  to  win  its  object,  and  it  forbids 
any  dispersion  of  thought.  But  we  have  already  said, 
touching  on  this  subject,  '  that  it  may  be  well  questioned 
whether  a  great  success  is  not  deafly  purchased  at  the 
price  of  an  imperfect  manhood,  whether  success  is  the 
chief  thing  in  life.'  The  man  of  only  one  set  of  ideas 
is  only  the  fraction  of  a  man,  however  he  may  have 
perfected  that  set  of  ideas.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that 
he  becomes  the  bigoted  worshipper  of  his  own  speciality, 
and  the  theologian  and  the  scientific  man  mutually 
despise  each  other  for  blindness  to  the  separate  range  of 
truths  on  which  each  insists,  not  seeing  that  as  long  as 
they  despise  any  human  interests  whatsoever  they  are 
uncultured  men.  The  manifold  interests  of  their  youth 
ought  to  be  recalled,  but  at  the  same  time  they  ought 
to  be  combined  with  necessary  unity  of  aim.  Youth 
teaches  us  diversity;  the  first  entrance  into  middle 
age,  concentration ;  in  later  life  we  ought  to  combine 
both,  to  recover  the  interests  of  the  one  and  to  retain 


35<5  The  Afternoon  of  Life. 

the  power  of  the  other.  I  think  one  can  do  it  best  by 
the  means  of  two  great  Christian  ideas.  One  is,  that, 
as  God  has  called  us  to  perfection,  we  are  bound  to 
ennoble  our  being  from  end  to  end,  leaving  no  faculty 
untrained.  The  other  is,  that  as  Christ  lived  for  man's 
cause,  so  should  we.  The  first  will  force  you  to  seek  for 
manifold  interests  in  order  to  make  every  branch  of 
your  nature  grow ;  the  second  will  lift  you  out  of  the 
monotonous  and  limited  region  of  self  into  the  infinite 
world  of  ideas. 

So  you  will  slowly  get  back  the  charm  and  variety  of 
youth,  only  with  an  important  difference.  For  for- 
merly you  had  no  fixed  object,  and  life  was  dissipated 
in  pursuit  of  a  number  of  changing  objects.  Now  you 
have  found  your  work,  and  that  gives  security  and  an- 
chorage to  your  cliaracter.  You  are  fixed  to  a  centre, 
but  you  radiate  from  it  over  a  hundred  fields  of  interests, 
and,  living  along  each  line,  absorb  from  these  fields  a 
multitude  of  new  ideas  and  feelings  which  vary  while 
they  strengthen  your  single  aim.  The  new  subjects 
which  you  take  up  and  enjoy  make  you  more  complex 
in  thought,  more  manifold  in  feeling,  and,  to  your  sur- 
prise, your  real  work  does  not  suffer.  For  when  your 
character  widens  you  will  obtain  larger  ideas  of  your 
special  work,  and  do  it  more  completely.  The  new 
knowledge  and  new  thoughts  are  naturally  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  main  end,  and  its  import  expands,  but 
not  towards  selfish  aims.  The  high  motive,  that  all 
life  and  all  work  is  ultimately  to  be  dedicated  to  the 
cause  of  man,  carries  you  beyond  any  temporal  or  per- 
sonal aims,  while  it  includes  them.      The  pursuit  of 


Restoration  of  Interests  and  Poetry  of  Youth.   357 

your  life,  "whatever  it  may  be,  becomes  idealised  in  the 
atmosphere  of  this  motive  and  beautiful  therein.  An 
infinite  tenderness  and  grace  belongs  to  every  work 
whose  highest  aim  is  the  aim*  of  Christ— the  good  of 
man.  Life  then  becomes  delightful,  even  of  passionate 
interest,  and  the  whole  of  being  unfolds  like  a  rose — 
full  of  colour,  scent,  and  beauty. 

This  is  the  restoration  of  manifold  interests  to  life, 
and  the  consequent  development  of  character.  It  is 
one  of  our  highest  Christian  duties  to  seek  it  and 
attain  it. 

2.  Restoration  of  poetic  feeling. 

We  pass  our  youth  in  a  glorious  world.  One  has 
often  dwelt  upon  the  joy  with  which  the  child  receives 
the  tide  of  impi-essions  which,  wave  after  wave,  comes 
in  upon  him  from  nature  and  from  man.  But  they  are 
received  without  thought,  and  they  come  too  rapidly 
for  feeling  :  each  washes  away  the  previous  one.  It  is 
different  when  childhood  has  passed  and  the  intellect  and 
the  heart  are  now  developed  in  youth.  As  we  then  learn 
something  of  the  long  history  of  our  race,  and  Greece 
and  Rome  and  England  become  more  than  mere  names 
to  us,  our  enkindled  intellect  makes  a  hundred  theories 
with  regard  to  national  ideas,  their  growth  and  their  de- 
cay. "We  generalise,  and  delight  in  our  generalisations. 
It  seems  almost  degrading  to  the  imaginative  world  in 
which  we  live  to  bring  our  glorious  generalisations  to 
the  commonplace  test  of  facts.  At  last  a  dim  sus- 
picion begins  to  haunt  us  that  our  palaces  have  no 
foundation ;  a  scepticism,  which  we  hate  at  first,  forces 
us  to  prove  our  ideas ;  and  in  a  few  weeks  our  unsub- 


35^  T/te  Afternoon  of  Life. 

stantial  vision  dissolves,  and  we  are  left  disenclianted. 
And  now  we  resolve  to  be  practical,  and  in  a  dry  liglit 
to  search  for  and  to  secure  facts  alone. 

It  is  the  same  with  our  life  with  nature.  In  youth 
all  the  world  seemed  alive.  River,  rock,  and  flower 
seemed  to  speak  to  one  another,  and  to  give  us  back  love 
for  the  love  with  which  Ave  met  them.  We  were  bound 
to  the  universe,  and  the  universe  to  us.  All  things 
lived  in  and  for  each  other,  and  in  the  thought  of 
the  mutual  love  of  all  we  saw  and  heard  of  all  that 
nature  gave  to  us,  and  we  sent  back  in  swift  reci- 
procation— poetry  and  art  were  born  within  us,  and 
we  moved  rejoicing  in  an  atmosphere  of  beauty.  A 
certain  solemn  awe  amid  the  high  solitudes  of  nature, 
an  imaginative  fear,  as  of  a  spirit  in  the  air  and  sea, 
added  to  beauty  a  sense  of  sublimity.  Then  came  the 
first  touch  of  accurate  knowledge  to  disperse  our  dream. 
Compelled  to  look  at  things  one  by  one,  we  soon  lost 
the  poetic  sense  of  them.  It  seemed  absurd  to  think  of 
the  love  of  the  stream  to  its  meadows,  of  the  bird  to  the 
flower.  Life  passed  away  from  the  universe,  and  we 
found  ourselves  face  to  face  with  a  rigid  force  instead 
of  a  living  spirit.  Awe,  and  the  terror  which  creates 
the  sublime,  vanished  when  we  knew  the  reasons  of 
things.  A  little  study  of  electricity,  and  we  soon 
lost  the  delightful  awe  with  which  we  invested  the 
thunderstorm.  The  colours  and  grace  of  the  flower 
cleparted  as  we  divided  its  stamens  and  counted  its 
petals.  We  classified  it,  and  it  became  a  name,  and  not 
a  living  thing.  We  smiled  when  we  thought  of  our 
poetic  world  5  after  all,  it  was  very  commonplace.     We 


Restoration  of  Interests  and  Poetry  of  Youth,  359 

set  ourselves  to  work  to  grope  amid  isolated  facts,  and 
all  the  loveliness  of  the  world  decayed. 

It  is  possible  to  settle  do>vn  into  this,  to  become  the 
mere  collector  of  historical  facts,  the  mere  investigator 
of  the  surface-life  of  nature,  and  for  a  time  it  is  wise 
that  we  should  go  through  this  phase.  But  to  remain 
in  it  to  the  end  is  unworthy  of  a  man,  an  ignoble  and 
a  joyless  life.  We  cannot  be  content  with  it.  A  pas- 
sionate desire  stirs  within  us  to  find  our  poetry  again, 
to  realise  in  the  history  of  man  an  organic  unity  of 
thought,  to  clothe  the  skeleton  of  nature  with  a  living 
form.  But  not  as  before.  We  have  now  possession  of 
facts,  and  we"  must  build  up  our  new  world  of  beauty 
upon  their  foundations.  In  the  old  dreamland  we  can 
never  live  again,  but  we  may  live  in  an  ideal  and  yet  a 
true  world ;  we  may  restore  the  poetry  of  youth  to  our 
life  in  its  relation  both  to  Man  and  Nature. 

As  to  the  first,  there  is  no  idea  which  will  so  rapidly 
guide  us  into  a  larger  and  more  imaginative  view  of  the 
history  of  man  than  the  great  Christian  thought  which 
we  owe  to  Christ,  that  all  the  race  is  contained  in 
God ;  that  all  are  bound  together  into  unity  in  Him ; 
that  as  all  are  children  of  one  Father,  so  all  are  bro- 
thers existing  in  and  for  the  good  of  one  another. 

It  is  impossible,  then,  to  study  any  one  age  or  any 
one  nation  as  isolated  from  the  rest.  It  is  impos- 
sible,  then,  to  think  that  anything  is  done  by  any 
nation  which  does  not  live  in  the  whole  race  to  influ- 
ence it  for  ever.  Invisible  bonds  bind  the  whole  of 
the  past  to  the  present  and  the  future.  We  look  upon 
nations  as  living  organisms,  which  g^w,  and  whoso 


360  The  Afternoon  of  Life. 

seeds  wlien  they  die  spring  tip  in  other  forms  in  other 
nations.  We  rise  to  a  still  higher  thought  when  we  feel 
that  the  whole  of  Mankind  is  growing  in  the  growth 
of  its  parts  to  a  Divine  end. 

Again,  we  become  aware  of  a  living  will  beneath  the 
surface- movement  of  history.  We  see  this  Will,  which 
we  call  God,  in  the  immense  power  which  individual 
men  who  have  genius,  and  who  we  feel  are  inspired  by  a 
Divine  idea,  have  upon  history  ;  we  see  it  also  in  the  great 
ideas  which  influence  nations  and  the  race.  We  see  that 
facts  tell  us  nothing  till  we  can  show  their  relation  to 
these  ideas — that  if  we  would  know  our  race  and  its 
nations  we  must  have,  not  only  the  annals,  but  a  philo- 
sophy of  history.  At  last,  out  of  all  this  new  thought 
there  slowly  emerges  the  majestic  conception  of  one 
great  Mankind  growing  up,  century  by  century,  into  a 
higher,  more  complex  life,  and  passing  onwards  to  fulfd 
itself  in  union  with  the  idea  of  God  of  which  it  is  in 
time  the  manifestation. 

Thus,  without  losing  our  sense  of  the  truth  of  facts, 
we  get  back  our  poetry.  We  live  in  a  world  grander 
and  more  beautiful  than  our  youthful  one,  and  every 
new  fact  we  gain  goes  to  swell  the  majesty  of  our  con- 
ception. 

Again,  in  our  relation  to  nature,  we  can  get  back  what 
we  have  lost.  There  are  different  paths  to  this  recovery, 
but  none  lead  us  to  it  more  directly  and  rapidly  than 
the  true  conception  of  God.  Once  we  have  realised  the 
thought  of  One  Divine  Will  as  the  centre  of  the  universe, 
we  ca,n  no  longer  abide  in  the  realm  of  unconnected 
facts.     We  feel  they  must  be  related  to  each  other, 


Restoration  of  Interests  and  Poetry  of  Youth.  361 

aud  so  related  as  to  find  themselves  in  order  under  a 
few  ideas,  which  we  may  call  laws  or  what  we  please. 
Looking  from  our  facts  with  this  hope,  we  find  at  last, 
and  directly  through  the  help  of  the  imagination,  the 
great  expressions  of  law  which,  tested  by  experiment, 
place  us  in  a  higher  world  of  thought,  no  longer  the 
mere  collectors  of  facts,  but  the  creators  of  an  ordered 
universe.  And  now  we  hear  no  longer  isolated  notes, 
but  the  great  symphony  of  nature — two  or  three  themes 
infinitely  varied,  and  the  themes  themselves  so  subtly 
connected  in  idea  that  all  together  they  build  up  a 
palace  of  lovely  and  perfect  harmony.  This  is  the 
restoration  in  a  truer  form  of  the  ideal  majesty  and 
the  poetic  feeling  of  our  youth.  And  if  we  add  to 
this  another  thought,  which  does  not  contradict  the 
truth  of  science,  but  which  is  beyond  its  proof — that 
all  things  are  filled  with  the  life  of  God,  and  have  their 
motions,  organic  and  inorganic,  in  Him,  being  in  fact 
forms  of  His  thought  and  manifestations  of  His  life — 
we  get  back  still  more  completely  our  early  poetry, 
without  the  untruthfulness  which  then  ensured  its 
death.  The  world,  long  dead  to  us,  begins  to  live 
again.  We  begin  to  feel  our  union  with  it  within  the 
thought  and  life  of  God.  We  are  fitted  to  it,  and  it  to 
us;  we  receive  beauty  from  it  through  a  thousand 
sensible  impressions  ;  we  clothe  it  in  new  beauty  by  the 
work  of  our  intellect  and  feeling  upon  it.  The  same 
living  Spirit  moves  in  us  and  in  it,  and  binds  us  to  it, 
till  we  feel  towards  mountain,  cloud,  and  stream,  and 
every  lovely  spot  upon  its  surface,  a  feeling  which 
partakes  of  personal  friendship  and  affection.     More- 


362  The  Afternoon  of  Life > 

over,  though  the  form  of  the  thought  is  changed,  we 
get  back,  through  the  higher  science,  our  old  imagina- 
tion that  the  things  of  nature  love  each  other  and  live 
for  each  other.  There  is  a  true  intercourse  between 
air  and  flowers.  Flowers  do  really  breathe.  The  air 
gives  its  carbonic  acid  to  the  plant,  the  plant  gives 
back  oxygen  to  the  air.  The  sun  is  as  truly  the  great 
giver  of  life  and  force  and  joy  in  the  world  of  nature 
as  in  that  of  the  imagination.  And  these  are  but  a 
few  instances,  out  of  a  multitude,  of  the  infinite 
association  of  all  things.  We  are  not  really  wrong 
when  we  say  that  all  things  live  by  giving  and  re- 
ceiving of  each  other's  good. 

This  is  the  restoration  of  poetic  feeling  to  our  man- 
hood. It  is  a  noble  thing  to  reach ;  it  dignifies  life  to 
the  very  close.  It  dignified  the  life  of  him  ^  who  has 
lately,  full  of  years  and  honour,  passed  away  from  us, 
who  was  laid  last  week  in  the  silent  Abbey  beside  one 
greater  than  he,  but  not  more  pure  of  heart,  more 
faithful  to  God  and  to  his  work,  more  full  of  high 
enthusiasm  for  knowledge,  and  of  delight  therein.  He 
kept  to  the  end  that  eternal  childhood  which  is  the 
special  grace,  and  perhaps  the  special  power,  of  genius. 
Through  accurate  science  he  had  reached  the  true 
poetical  life  with  nature,  and  his  old  age  had  greater 
pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  the  world  than  his  boyhood. 
Building  up  by  philosophic  thought  the  palace  of  the 
universe,  he  filled  it  with  the  love  and  feeling  which  all 
the  loveliness  of  the  universe  stirred  within  his  heart. 

*  Sir  John  Herschel. 


Restoration  of  Interests  and  Poetry  of  Youth.  363 

Disdaining  nothing,  finding  in  all  things  interest  and 
delight,  ho  gavo  as  much  thought  and  rapture  to  the 
fungi  of  the  wayside  hedge  as  he  gave  of  old  to  the 
southern  stars  in  those  four  years  of  lonely  work  nigh 
to  the  Cape  of  Storms.  Nor  did  he  miss  the  higher  and 
more  poetic  thoi;ght  which  made  the  universe,  whose 
laws  he  knew,  not  the  slave  of  law,  but  alive  with  the 
spirit  and  wisdom  of  God.  He  rejoiced  to  see,  not 
force  alone,  but  a  Divine  will  moving  in  all  things ;  and 
so  it  came  to  pass  that  his  'common  thoughts  were 
piety,  and  his  life  .gratitude.'  He  wore  his  learning 
'lightly  as  a  flower,'  and  wore  it  as  the  gift  of  God. 
And  as  I  refer  in  thought  to  the  beginning  of  this 
eermon,  I  see  that  it  was  given  to  him  to  illustrate 
that  life  of  manifold  interests  which  leaves  no  power 
imdeveloped.  He  was  not  enslaved  to  one  branch  of 
science,  nor  to  science  alone.  We  know  over  how  many 
fields  of  natural  philosophy  he  went  his  way,  but  it  is 
with  special  pleasure  that  we  think  of  the  wise  old  man 
recalling  in  age  the  interests  of  youth,  and  finding  in 
his  translation  of  Homer  the  charm  of  the  earlier  Greek 
world  encompassing  him  with  the  old  poetic  life.  It  is 
'vvith  equal  interest  that  in  the  scholar  we  find  the 
patriot,  and  hear  that  it  was  his  voice  which  in  his 
village  stirred  the  youths  to  take  up  with  eagerness 
the  volunteer  movement  of  England. 

He  died,  having  finished  his  work  faithfully,  and 
with  youthful  ardour,  to  ^he  end — a  man  who  had 
developed  all  the  powers  which  God  had  given  him,  and 
who  rendered  them  up  with  humility  and  faith  to  God 
again:   not   indeed   to   die   here   in   our  memory,   or 


364  The  Afternoon  of  Life. 

there,  where  he  has  gone  to  cease  his  labour  or  to  lose 
his  delight.  For,  for  such  as  he,  in  that  ampler  world 
there  is  ampler  work,  in  that  lovelier  world  there  is 
higher  pleasure. 

Yes,  brethren,  for  those  who  choose  growth  and  not 
stagnation,  for  those  who  win  back,  in  Teverence  for 
their  own  nature  and  for  the  idea  of  God  within  them, 
the  dreams  of  youth  in  a  truer  and  nobler  manner,  and 
add  their  realisation  to  the  steady  work  of  manhood — 
for  those  who  believe  that  God  wishes  them  to  be 
perfect,  and  strive  to  grow  into  that  perfection — for 
those  who  do  not  cease  to  aspire,  while  they  work 
within  their  limits,  growth  does  not  cease,  it  goes  on 
for  ever.  For  them  the  promise  of  my  text  is  true — 
their  youth  is  renewed  like  the  eagle's. 


The  Afternoon  of  Life.  365 


TUE  AFTERNOON  OF  LIFE, 

TITB  RESTORATION  OF  OUR  IDEAL  OF  MAN. 

*  Lord,  what  is  man,  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him  ?  and  the  son  of 
man,  that  thou  visitest  him  ?  For  thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,  and  hast  crowned  him  with  glory  and  honour.' — 
l*salm  viii.  4, 5. 

The  twofold  view  taken  of  man  in  these  verses  is 
remarkable.  The  Psalmist  begins  bj  depreciation.  Is 
man  worthy  of  the  care  of  God  ?  Can  this  creature, 
whose  time  passeth  away  like  a  shadow,  in  himself  a 
thing  of  nought,  engage  the  thought  and  tenderness 
of  God?  And  in  truth,  this  is  often  our  bitterest 
feeling.  It  seems,  at  times,  when  the  hopes  which 
were  once  so  bright  have  faded  from  our  skies,  that 
God  tiikes  no  pride  in  us,  that  we  and  all  our  long, 
weary  effort  are  nothing  to  His  heart. 

But  neither  we  nor  the  Psalmigt  can  continue  to 
maintain  that  view.  We  feel  that  it  is  one-sided.  We 
learn  that  God  does  care  for  us,  that  He  has  some  pride 
in  the  creatures  He  has  sent  forth  from  Himself.  Wo 
pass  from  the  lowly  to  the  exalted  view,  and  in* com- 
bining both  we  find  the  whole  truth.  What  is  man  ? 
Nothing,  it  is  true,  but  also,  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels,  crowned  vnth  glory  and  honour,  having  domi- 


366  The  Afternoon  of  L  ife, 

nion  over  all  the  earth.  The  lowlier  view  belongs 
often  to  our  manhood,  the  ideal  view  to  our  youth, 
the  combination  of  both  ought  to  belong  to  our  later 
years. 

In  the  progress  from  childhood  to  later  manhood,  a 
portion  of  which  subject  we  treated  last  Sunday,  our 
view  of  man  changes  as  much  as  our  view  of  nature. 
We  begin  with  a  lofty  but  dreamy  ideal  of  the  good- 
ness and  glory  of  Man,  and  the  dream  often  lasts 
through  our  youth.  "We  pass  at  the  beginning  of 
middle  age  into  a  period  when  our  dream  is  shattered 
by  disappointment.  We  are  cheated,  we  come  into 
contact  with  false  friendship,  we  discover  the  vast 
extent  of  evil  in  mankind,  and  we  are  in  danger  of 
settling  down  into  scorn,  or  indifference  to  men.  It 
would  be  a  miserable  groove  of  thought  in  which  to 
run  down  into  the  grave.  But  God  has  provided  some 
better  thing  for  us.  Slowly  our  early  ideal  is  restored 
in  another  way.  We  gain  a  wiser,  truer,  more  chari- 
table view  of  our  race.  We  take  into  it  the  lessons 
learnt  during  the  time  of  our  disappointment,  and  yet 
we  find  man  crowned  with  glory  and  honour.  The 
crown  is  mingled  with  dark  weeds,  and  thorns  are 
among  its  gold  and  jewels,  but  after  all  it  is  a  crown. 

This,  then,  is  our  subject  to-day — the  restoration,  in 
the  later  years  of  middle-age,  of  the  ideal  of  mankind. 

But,  first,  we  must  trace  the  growth  of  our  ideal 
throii^h  childhood  and  youth.  It  takes  its  earliest  form 
through  home.  Our  mother's  care  and  love ;  our  father's 
watchfulness ;  the  less  deep,  but  natural  kindness  of  ser- 
vants; the  joy  of  holidays,  when  everyone  seems  to  live 


The  Restoration  of  our  Ideal  of  Man.      367 

to  amuse  us ;  the  pleasant  association  with  our  brothers, 
sisters,  and  childish  friends,  sufficiently  varied  by  quar- 
rels, like  April  showers,  to  be  interesting,  create  in  us 
an  ideal  of  mankind.  All  are  loving",  true,  and  faithful 
to  us,  sheltered  as  we  are  from  wrong  in  the  enclosed 
garden  of  home. 

As  we  pass  into  boyhood,  still  innocent,  the  transient 
sorrows  and  betrayals  which  we  suffer  do  not  touch  us 
with  great  pain.  Our  feelings  are -not  deep  enough  to 
risk  much  on  one  person,  nor  to  lose  much  if  we  are 
disappointed.  Our  sense  of  moral  right  is  not  keen 
enough  to  suffer  much  from  untruthfulness,  nor  to  know 
how  evil,  evil  is.     We  still  believe  in  men. 

Again,  nature  helps  us  to  idealise  man.  We  see  man 
through  the  nature  we  love,  and  add  to  our  half- formed 
conception  of  him  the  sublimity,  beauty,  or  peace  of 
the  scenes  in  which  we  find  him.  Those  who  have 
been  young  in  the  midst  of  the  orchards  and  cool 
gardens  of  mid-England,  will  remember  how  they  trans- 
ferred the  sweetness  and  calm  of  nature  to  the  life  of 
the  labourer  without  seeing  its  evil  and  its  misery. 
Those  who  have  lived  among  sterner  scenes,  where 
man,  as  in  the  shepherd-life  among  the  mountains,  has 
to  contend  with  awful  forces,  where  every  rocky  gorge 
and  torrent  has  its  tale  of  human  suffering  or  human 
daring,  will  recall  how  their  imagination  worked  till 
man  became  in  thought  sublime — a  living  creature 
moving  as  a  master  among  the  powers  of  nature  till  he 
was  seen  as  one  of  them.  This  was  the  exj)erience  of 
Wordsworth's  boyhood.  Man  was  *  ennobled  outwardly 
oefore  his  sight.* 


368  The  Afternoon  of  Life. 

It  is  tlius  that  onr  ideal  grows,  from  the  direct 
influence  of  home,  and  from  the  transference  of  the 
beaiitj,  passion,  and  power  of  nature  to  those  who  live 
among  nature. 

We  dream  of  a  perfect  humanity. 

And  it  is  a  thing  to  bless  God  for  to  begin  life  in  this 
way,  to  start  with  belief  in  the  nobleness  of  our  race: 

Were  it  otherwise. 
And  we  found  evil  fast  as  we  find  good 
In  our  first  years,  or  think  that  it  is  found, 
How  could  the  innocent  heart  bear  up  and  live  ? 

Happy  is  the  man  who  has  had  in  childhood  true  hearts 
and  loving  hands  about  him  in  his  home ;  happy  he, 
whose  inexperienced  thoughts  have  first  communed 
with  man  through  the  fair  and  sublime  things  of  nature. 
For  7m  face  is  turned  towards  the  truth,  his  preposses- 
sions are  of  that  kind 

Without  which  the  soul 
Receives  no  knowledge  that  can  bring  forth  good. 

No  sight  of  evil  afterwards,  of  misery,  of  meanness,  can 
ever  blot  wholly  out  of  his  mind  hope  for  the  race  and 
belief  in  goodness.  He  can  say,  when  the  first  bitter- 
ness of  disappointment  is  over,  '  Well,  all  this  is  evil, 
but  there  must  be  a  seed  of  good  ;  all  this  is  vile,  but 
there  is  worthiness  if  I  could  find  it — for  I  have  known 
a  loving  home,  I  have  felt  true  reverence  for  man.' 

Nor,  indeed,  though  much  of  its  simplicity  is  lost,  is 
our  ideal  of  man  lost  as  long  as  youth  lasts.  We  are 
then  too  full  of  life  to  look  at  death,  too  full  of  hope 
to  believe  in  the  victory  of  wrong,  too  ready  for  new 
friends  and  new  interests  to  care  much  for  the  loss  of  a 


Tlie  Restoration  of  our  Ideal  of  Man.     369 

few :  we  have  so  much  faith  in  men  that  we  can  afford 
to  part  with  some,  and  not  recognise  that  we  are  the 
poorer. 

Moreover,  books  open  to  us  their  wondrous  world. 
We  find  our  heroes,  heroes  of  war  and  religion,  of  daring 
adventure  and  self-sacrifice.  The  poets  and  artists 
seize  on  us,  and  man  grows  beautiful  in  their  pages  and 
their  work.  Vast  thoughts  of  a  march  of  nations,  of  the 
terrible  games  they  play,  of  their  mighty  rise  and  fall, 
of  the  causes  and  the  ideas  millions  have  struggled 
for  and  of  the  passions  involved,  swell  into  sublimity 
our  idea  of  man,  till  at  last  nature  becomes  second  and 
man  first,  the  central  thing  of  the  universe,  dust,  yet 
akin  to  godhead,  shortlived  as  the  flitting  of  the  shuttle 
through  the  loom,  but  crowned  with  glory  and  honour, 
and  all  things  in  subjection  nnder  his  feet. 

No  one  can  say  that  this  ideal  lasts.  It  does  not  bear 
contact  with  the  world.  It  is  a  dream,  and  we  wake  to 
lose  it.  But  in  our  loss  of  it,  we  fall  into  the  other 
extreme.  We  have  as  mean  an  opinion  of  man  as  we 
had  a  lofty  one,  and  our  question  is,  is  that  mean 
opinion  the  right  one ;  is  it  fit  that  we  should  possess 
it  to  the  close  ?  Or  can  we  get  back  our  ideal  in  a 
truer  and  a  soberer  fashion,  and  die  with  faith  and 
hope  for  man,  with  love  for  him  ruling  our  thoughts 
and  action  ?  That  question  we  may  answer  .by  tracing 
some  of  the  ways  in  which  we  lose  our  youthful  ideal 
and  find  it  again,  a  different,  but  a  securer  thing. 

Youth  is  scarcely  over  before  a  certain  weariness  of 
our  enthusiasm  creeps  over  us.  We  have  worked  it 
80  hard  that  its  sources  are  exhausted  for  a  time.    Tho 


370  The  Afternoon  of  Life. 

light  and  colour  fade  away  from  many  things,  and  we 
turn  upon  them  with  a  kind  of  anger  because  they  give 
us  no  more  the  pleasure  we  once  received.  Then  we 
begin  to  play  with  a  kind  of  cynicism ;  we  say,  emotion 
is  dead  and  youth  is  past,  and  that  all  things  are  indif- 
ferent. But  there  is  little  reality  in  our  talk,  for  we  are 
as  full  of  emotion  and  of  life  as  before.  It  is  simply  that 
we  are  tired  of  the  part  of  enthusiasm,  and  we  want  to 
play  another  part  and  make  our  life  a  little  more  dra- 
matic. We  are  not  yet  disenchanted,  but  still  this  sort 
of  thing  prepares  us  for  disenchantment.  We  are  ready 
now,  in  this  half-contempt  of  enthusiasm,  when  we  get 
any  proof  of  the  badness  of  men,  to  think  badly  of  Man. 

Moreover,  we  have  really  lost  the  grand  abstract 
thought  of  man  which  we  won  from  knowledge  of  books 
and  art.  The  little  vices  and  follies  of  the  university  or 
society,  their  'bustling  passions,'  the  small  and  idle 
characters  we  meet,  the  petty  interests  of  the  common 
world  in  which  we  move  before  we  enter  on  the  work  of 
manhood,  all  tend  to  break  up  the  general  thought  of 
mankind  into  its  petty  particulars.  The  grand  concep- 
tion of  the  whole  race,  and  of  nations,  as  impersonated 
in  thought,  fades  away,  and  we  find  ourselves  forced  to 
look  upon  a  series  of  small  persons.  We  drop  from 
our  ideal  heights. 

Then  comes  the  entrance  into  real  life,  into  the  work 
of  manhood  or  womanhood,  abroad  or  at  home,  and  our 
disillusion  begins.  We  find  life  harder  than  we  thought, 
and  men  and  women  very  different  from  our  ideal.  We 
are  in  the  midst  of  those  who  repudiate  enthusiasm  as 
unpractical,  to  whom  self-interest  is  the  first  law,  and 


Tfie  Restoration  of  our  Ideal  of  Man,     371 

whose  rule  is  to  suspect  rather  than  to  trust.  Every- 
thing goes  to  overthrow  our  dream  of  a  high  Humanity. 
Our  aspirations  and  hopes  are  ridiculed,  and  we  join, 
after  a  time,  in  the  ridicule.  Wo  are  cheated  and  over- 
reached in  business,  or  made  a  tool  of  in  society,  and  it 
is  well  if  we  do  not  join  by  and  by  in  the  same  sort  of 
work,  and  deal  to  others  the  measure  we  have  received. 
We  thought  men  would  help  us  when  we  desired  to 
help  them,  give  way  to  us  when  we  had  right  on 
our  side,  be  honourable  with  us  as  we  with  them,  and 
we  find  many  as  hard  and  cold  as  granite,  and  who 
will  neither  help,  nor  give  way  to  right,  nor  be  just, 
if  it  goes  against  their  personal  interest.  And  we 
whisper  to  ourselves,  *We  will  go  with  the  stream; 
why  should  not  self-interest  be  our  law  also  ?  All  are 
equally  bad,  why  should  we  adopt  a  higher  standard  of 
justice,  love,  and  honour  than  the  rest?  Should  we  do  so 
in  this  whirling  tide,  where  every  atom  pushes  the  other 
out  of  its  way,  we  shall  never  succeed.'  And  then  the 
work  is  done,  and  the  noble  image  youth  presented  of 
mankind  changes  into  an  ugly  idol. 

A  still  bitterer  blow  awaits  us  often.  We  have  had 
a  friend,  man  or  woman.  He  represented  to  us  man- 
kind, he  embodied  for  us  all  our  youthful  dreams  of 
faithfulness,  honour,  and  devotion.  With  him  all  the 
world  was  fair,  things  done  with  him  had  twofold 
worth.  Our  trust  in  him  was  full  and  clear,  and  we 
should  have  taken  his  cause  as  ours  against  the  world. 
When,  all  in  the  turn  of  an  hour,  we  find  him  false  as 
heU,  mean,  one  who  has  used  our  love  for  his  own  ends, 
who  never  gave  back  one  feeling  to  us  that  was  not 


372  The  Afternoon  of  Life. 

feigned,  who  laughed  in  his  sleeve  at  our  trust,  and  had 
not  merit  enough  to  be  ashamed  of  his  baseness. 

With  that,  the  house  of  life  falls  in  the  most  hateful 
ruin  round  us.  We  are  soured  at  the  heart.  '  All  are  as 
mean  and  false  as  he,'  we  cry  in  our  first  passion.  We 
hate  and  scorn  ourselves  for  our  blindness,  and  this 
gives  to  our  bitterness  a  keener  sting.  We  doubt  our 
other  friends,  we  even  doubt  ourselves  ;  truth  and  good- 
ness seem  to  us  but  cunning  forms  of  ill,  and  as  we 
think  of  our  youth,  and  its  ideal  of  man,  our  laugh  is 
half  of  scorn  and  half  of  shame. 

Are  we  to  settle  down  into  these  things?  Is  this 
contempt  of  men,  and  the  selfishness  and  isolation 
it  engenders,  the  atmosphere  which  we  shall  breathe 
through  manhood  to  old  age  ?  God  forbid  ! — there  is 
no  outward  misery  which  would  not  be  blessedness  in 
comparison  with  that.  Nor  does  the  Father  of  love 
leave  us  in  this  bitter  land.  In  some  hour  when  the 
heart  is  softened,  we  become  aware  of  the  lesson  of 
the  cross  of  Christ.  Some  simple  event,  in  which  we 
have  to  act  for  others,  calls  us  out  of  our  selfishness,  and 
we  are  as  it  were  surprised  into  self-devotion.  In  a 
moment  of  impulse,  we  forget  ourselves  for  a  child,  a 
woman,  or  an  acquaintance.  At  first  we  smile  at  the 
return  of  enthusiasm,  and  half  despise  ourselves  for  our 
unpractical  effort.  But  the  sweetness  of  the  thing 
makes  its  way.  We  have  felt  the  attractive  power  of 
the  cross.  He  who  was  lifted  up  for  men  draws  us  to 
his  life  by  making  us  partakers  of  the  joy  of  sacrifice. 
We  feel  not,  as  in  youth,  a  pleasure  for  which  we  can 
give  no  reason,  but  pleasure  which  seems  founded  on  a 


The  Restoration  of  our  Ideal  of  Man,     3  73 

law,  for  the  more  we  give  up  for  others,  the  deeper  and 
the  purer  is,  we  find,  our  pleasure. 

And  in  the  light  of  this  revelation,  we  whisper  to  our 
heart,  '  The  maxim  of  the  world  is  wrong,  self-interest 
is  not  the  first  thing.  I  have  found  men  bad  because 
my  rule  of  life  was  evil.  I  will  live  for  others  now.  I 
will  try  what  love,  and  trust,  and  the  ignoring  of  wrong 
to  myself  will  do  towards  restoring  my  ancient  joy.' 

It  is  wonderful  how  men  change  to  a  changed  heart. 
We  ourselves  being  ennobled,  see  noble  things,  and 
loving,  find  out  love.  Little  touches  of  goodness,  of 
courage,  of  love  in  men,  which,  formerly,  looking  for 
perfection,  we  passed  by,  now  attract  us  like  flowers 
beside  a  dusty  highway.  We  take  them  as  keys  to  the 
character,  and  door  after  door  flies  open  to  us.  The 
man  reveals  the  treasures  of  his  heart.  We  find  aspira- 
tion, penitence,  tenderness,  in  those  we  thought  gro- 
velling, hard,  and  selfish.  We  trust  men,  we  throw 
ourselves  upon  the  good  in  them,  and  they  become 
better  now  that  they  are  not  suspected  of  being  evil. 

Driven  by  our  new  principle  to  search  for  good  and 
not  evil,  and  to  find  it  in  all,  we  take  notice  of  ordi- 
nary men  whom  we  have  passed  over,  and  it  is  with  an 
exquisite  surprise  that  we  become  conscious  of  the 
vast  amount  of  daily  sacrifice  done  by  common  men 
and  women,  by  those  whom  we  call  dull,  by  those  who 
have  to  fight  a  hard  battle  like  the  poor ;  of  the  high 
service  performed  to  God  in  many  a  simple  heart,  that, 
like  a  mountain  chapel  on  the  wayside,  can  shelter  only 
humble  worshippers.  Delighted  we  pursue  our  quest. 
Each  day  unveils  something  good,  and  at  last  our  ideal 


374  1^^^  Afternoon  of  Life. 

is  restored  again,  sunliglit  breaks  again  upon  the  land- 
scape of  humanity.  Only  we  see  the  real  thing  now, 
and  not  the  dream.  We  see  evil  with  the  good,  we 
see  struggle,  frequent  failure  as  well  as  victory,  but  we 
have  a  manly  sympathy  with  the  struggle,  and  a  belief 
that  failure  will  be  repaired  through  God,  in  whom, 
through  our  knowledge  of  the  goodness  of  man,  we  are 
now,  at  last,  beginning  to  believe.  We  do  not  expect 
too  much  or  demand  too  much,  for  we  know  now  what 
human  weakness  means;  we  make  allowances,  we  have 
patience  to  wait,  we  suffer  long  and  are  bind,  and  by 
and  by  we  are  rewarded  by  finding  that  we  have  led  a 
soul  out  of  selfishness  into  charity,  out  of  weakness 
into  power.  And  so  a  softer,  sweeter,  humbler  life 
becomes  ours;  an  infinite  and  tender  hope  for  man 
swells  in  our  heart ;  and  slowly  there  grows  up  a  new 
ideal,  a  new  picture  of  Mankind,  truer  than  our  youth- 
ful one,  farther  off,  but  built  on  deep  foundations  hidden 
in  the  guiding  tenderness  of  a  Father  of  men  whom 
we  have  learned,  through  the  spirit  of  the  Saviour  in 
our  hearts,  to  trust  with  His  own  children. 

Then,  also,  the  bitterness  of  that  first  betrayal  of 
friendship  passes  away.  We  feel  it  shameful  to  make 
the  lie  of  one  prove  the  lie  of  all ;  we  feel  it  an  insolence 
done  to  mankind  to  condemn  all  men  because  one  has 
put  gall  into  our  heart.  Even  the  hatred  which  we  felt 
at  first  for  the  deceiver  passes  at  last  into  a  kind  of 
distant  pity  for  one  who  was  so  empty-hearted  as  to 
betray.  We  hate  the  treachery,  we  cannot  quite  hate 
the  traitor.  We  never  admit  him  to  touch  our  hand 
again,  but  we  forgive  him  and  pass  on. 


Tlie  Restoration  of  our  Ideal  of  Man.     375 

For  we  should  feel  it  disgraceful  to  be  so  overcome 
by  our  disappointment  as  to  drop  for  ever  the  bright 
conception  of  our  youth  or  to  wholly  disbelieve  in  friend- 
ship because  one  friendship  has  been  foolish.  It  is  the 
traitor  who  is  degraded,  not  we.  At  the  hour  of  his 
^vorst  trial,  all  forsook  and  fled  the  Saviour.  But  Ho 
met  them  after  his  death  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 
One,  indeed,  went  to  his  own  place.  For  so  deep  a 
treachery  there  was  no  forgiveness  in  this  world.  But 
Christ  recognised  the  weakness  of  the  rest,  and  forgave. 
He  did  not  distrust  all  human  goodness,  or  even  theirs, 
because  they  had  once  wretchedly  failed. 

Looking  on  that,  we  recover  our  ideal  of  human 
nature,  our  heart  opens  to  new  friendships,  and  we  find, 
taught  by  our  experience,  friends  who  at  least  are  true. 
We  prove  them,  and  though  we  discover  dross  amid 
the  gold,  somehow  the  dross  enhances  the  value  of  the 
gold.  And  as  the  friendship  grows  it  loses  its  little- 
ness, and  becomes  at  last,  chastened  by  many  mutual 
trials,  something  on  which  we  can  rely  for  life  and 
death.  Our  old  ideal  is  restored,  and  we  can  trust  ij^ 
now. 

Once  more,  that  youtliful  ideal,  won  from  history 
and  art,  of  the  grandeur  of  the  whole  race  and  its 
career,  is  rudely  overthrown  when  life  brings  us  as  men 
into  contact  with  the  evils  of  great  cities,  with  the  sins 
of  nations  and  governments,  with,  perhaps,  things 
horrible  in  the  history  of  our  own  time.  The  first 
shock,  whei>  our  early  conception  of  womanhood  is  over- 
thrown in  a  great  city,  is  followed  by  a  hundred  others. 
We  become  aware  of  whole  masses  of  society  living  iu 


37^  'TJie  Afternoon  of  Life, 

habitual  crime,  and  apparently  condemned  to  it  by  an 
iron  fate.  Still  more  miserable  when,  having  loved 
national  freedom  and  just  government,  we  see  them 
violated  for  many  years,  men  degraded  and  accepting 
their  degradation,  the  gulf  between  classes  deepened, 
and  such  seeds  of  hatred  sown,  that  at  last,  in  an  hour 
of  demoralisation,  that  which  has  torn  all  our  hearts 
for  the  last  week  takes  place — madness,  despair,  and 
anarchy  on  one  side,  fierce  and  hateful  vengeance  on 
the  other — the  queen  of  European  cities  consumed  by 
her  own  children  and  her  streets  choked  with  the  dead, 
brothers  slain  by  brothers,  till  we  turn  away  sick  with 
pity  for  miserable  man,  sick  with  pain  for  that  which 
wiU  be  brought  in  charge  hereafter  against  the  sacred 
name  of  liberty.  Our  ideal  of  humanity  is  stained  with 
evil  or  made  dark  with  blood. 

And  is  it  in  this  that  we  are  to  die  ?  is  this  the  dread- 
ful faith  by  which  we  are  to  live  ?  When  old  age  has 
made  the  pulse  beat  less  warmly,  are  we  to  look  back 
upon  the  glorious  thought  of  our  growth,  and  weep  for 
its  ruin,  bitterly  ?  Not  so  !  the  wisdom  and  patience 
of  Christ  restore  a  more  sober  view,  give  back  the  light, 
and  reawake  the  hope.  The  soul  inevitably  reacts  from 
so  profound  a  gloom,  but  a  sense  of  awful  mystery  and 
power  remains,  born  out  of  the  very  horror  and  sin, 
and  broods  in  our  imagination  over  the  race  of  map. 
And  the  mystery  and  power  give  us  a  strange  suspicion 
that  that  which  could  sin  so  deeply  must  be  capable 
of  high  goodness  and  greatness.  It  cannot  be,  we 
think,  that  there  is  not  another  side  to  the  affairs  of 
men.     Then,  knowing  the  evil,   we   recall   the   good. 


TJu  Restoration  of  our  Ideal  of  Man.     2>n 

There  have  been  times  when  men  and  nations  have 
toiled  and  died  gloriously  for  great  causes  and  great 
ideas  ;  when,  in  some  high  national  sacrifice,  a  people 
have  shaken  off  their  evil  and  proved  that  man  has 
glory  and  honour  for  his  crown,  when  freedom  and 
truth  have  triumphed.  There  are  things  which  show 
still  that  God  has  not  forgotten  men,  that  He  still 
reveals  Himself  in  them  as  truth  and  justice,  still  cares 
and  works  for  them ;  times  when,  as  last  year,  a  long 
tyranny  went  down  with  a  crash,  and  the  hearts  of  all 
men  leaped  for  joy.  And,  thinking  of  these  things, 
there  suddenly  stai-t  up  before  us,  alit  with  our  new- 
born hope,  the  great  Christian  ideas  which  Christ  re- 
vealed in  life  and  died  for  on  the  cross,  and  the  spirit  of 
which  was  poured  out  like  fire  on  men  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost — the  idea  of  the  fatherhood  of  God,  and  there- 
fore of  the  childhood  of  all  the  race — the  idea  of  the 
brotherhood  of  mankind,  to  be  fulfilled  at  last — the  idea 
of  a  Mankind  made  divine  in  Christ,  and  therefore  in 
fact  destined  hereafter  to  reach,  collectively  and  man  by 
man,  through  ages  of  progressive  education,  the  divine 
perfection  now  secured  for  it  in  God.  And  grasping 
with  our  greatest  faith  these  things  as  truth,  our  vague 
hopes  are  strengthened,  and  in  spite  of  selfishness  and 
crime,  of  the  horror  and  pity  of  the  tragedy,  we  dare  to 
renew  our  ideal  in  a  wiser  way.  We  know  now  the  awful 
facts  of  human  life,  and  yet  do  not  despair.  We  take 
with  ns  the  troubled  human  heart  of  the  prophet,  and 
yet  we  prophesy  the  resurrection  of  nations  from  guilt, 
and  of  mankind  from  evil.  Below  the  storms  which 
toss  its  wild  waves  to  heaven  in  anarchy  of  waters 
17 


37^  The  Afternoon  of  Life, 

■we  look  into  the  central  heart  of  the  ocean  of  hnmanity, 
and  see  its  slow  current  moving  on  to  good.  A  vaster, 
nobler  idea  of  man  rises  before  us:  not  the  sinless, 
peaceful  ideal  of  our  youth,  but  the  idea  of  the  Titan, 
Mankind,  possessed  by  indestructible  good,  struggling 
onvrards  from  age  to  age  against  his  defectiveness  and 
his  evil  towards  perfection,  worn  with  a  myriad  sorrows, 
stained  by  a  thousand  wars,  his  mighty  brow  fuirowed 
with  the  thoughts  and  passions  of  centuries,  his  heart 
beating  with  love  which  renews  its  youth  eternally, 
with  dark  hatreds  too,  which  mark  his  weary  steps 
with  blood ;  and  yet  never  relaxing  his  onward  march, 
never  wholly  unconscious  of  the  good  within  him,  never 
wholly  false  t6  his  immortal  destiny,  never  forsaken  of 
God,  but  accomplishing  from  generation  to  generation, 
in  a  thousand  different  forms,  but  through  the  union  ot 
all  in  one  work  of  progress  and  development,  that  single 
aim  of  perfection  which  God  had  in  His  mind  for  the 
Race  when  He  created  Man  in  His  own  image  and 
endowed  him  with  the  passion  for  perfection.  It  is 
thus  that  we  get  back  our  ideal,  different  indeed,  not 
so  much  beautiful  as  sublime,  not  filling  our  hearts 
with  idle  joy,  but  penetrating  them  with  a  glorious 
expectation. 

And  now,  we  move,  as  in  the  presence  of  majestic 
sorrow  and  effort,  among  our  brothers  with  bated  breath 
and  loving  footstep.  The  awe  of  the  vast  struggle,  the 
infinite  variety  of  the  great  drama,  add  dignity  and 
solemnity  to  our  life.  A  faith  which  exalts  the  heart  and 
leads  to  devotion  to  the  human  cause  enters  into  our 
}ieart,  when  we  feel  that  all  Mankind  from  century  to 


Tlu  Restoration  of  our  Ideal  of  Man.     3  79 

century  is  working  out  in  form  the  idea  of  God,  and 
must  complete  it.  Patience  makes  the  soul  calm,  for 
the  vastness  of  the  conception  "\ve  now  possess  of  man 
reconciles  us  to  the  slowness  of  his  progress  ;  and  out  of 
the  thought  of  it  all,  and  of  dwelling  on  it  all — on  all  the 
suffering,  toil,  mystery,  and  victory,  and  the  immortal 
renewing  of  them  century  after  century — a  fountain  of 
love  and  tenderness  rises  in  the  heart  to  soften,  sweeten, 
and  fertilise  life  ;  and  within,  an  infinite  hope  for  man, 
half  rapturous  as  we  look  forward,  but  now  in  our  so- 
bered hearts  balanced  by  the  '  pathetic  truth '  of  life, 
makes  divine  our  decaying  years,  and  blesses  death 
with  the  faith  of  Simeon,  *  Lord,  now  lettest  Thou  thy 
servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy 
salvation,' 


380  The  Afternoo7i  of  Life, 


THE  AFTERNOON  OF  LIFE, 

THE  KESTORATION   OF  BELIEF. 

'  I  sliall  go  softly  all  my  years  in  the  bitterness  of  my  soul.' 
Isaiah  xxxviii.  15. 

We  have  spoken  for  two  Sundays  past  of  that  second 
half  of  man's  middle  age,  when  he  settles  down  for  life 
into  his  groove ;  when,  beginning  to  descend  the  hill 
towards  the  graveyard  in  the  valley,  he  will  not  change 
much  more,  except  through  the  changes  which  decay 
brings.  We  asked  the  solemn  question  of  ourselves, 
into  what  we  had  settled — into  hardness  or  tenderness 
of  heart,  into  width  or  narrowness  of  view,  into  sus- 
picion of  men  or  that  wisdom  of  charity  which  beareth, 
believeth,  and  hopeth  all  things  of  men.  We  saj7  that 
we  had  found,  after  many  oscillations,  the  work  of  our 
life,  that  central  point  to  which  our  will  directed  all  our 
faculties.  We  asked  ourselves  what  spirit  dwelt  in 
that  central  point — the  spirit  of  self,  or  the  spirit  of 
Christ ;  the  spirit  whose  wages  is  death,  or  the  spirit 
whose  gift  is  the  eternal  life  of  love. 

We  found  that  the  peculiar  dangers  of  this  settling 
down  -which  marks  the  second  period  of  middle-age 
were  the  destruction  of  youthful  ideals,  on  the  ground 
that  we  had  found  them   to  be  unpractical,  and  the 


The  Restoration  of  Belief.  3  S  i 

destruction  of  our  youthful  belief  ia  the  goodness  of 
men,  on  the  ground  that  wo  haxl  been  disai)pointed, 
deserted,  and  cheated ;  so  that  we  fell  in  the  first  case 
into  an  unpoetical  materialism,  and  in  the  second  into 
indifference  to  human  interests,  and  hardness  of  heart. 
It  became  a  question  then  how  we  might  escape  from 
this  hardness  of  heart  and  recover,  but  in  a  wiser  way, 
all  that  was  noble  in  our  youth.  We  traced  the  resto- 
ration of  our  poetic  feeling  towards  nature.  We  traced 
the  recovery  of  our  ideal  of  humanity,  but  we  left  the 
thii'd  untouched — the  restoration  of  belief.  This  will 
form  our  subject  to-day. 

In  the  especial  case  of  Hezekiah,  belief  was  restored 
by  a  great  shock  which  brought  him  into  contact  with 
reality.  He  had  been  living,  as  many  of  us  live,  a 
pleasant,  prosperous  life,  till  he  had  really  grown  to 
believe  that  this  world  and  its  interests  were  the  only 
things  worth  caring  for.  The  shadows  and  mockeries 
in  which  he  moved  grew  more  and  more  substantial 
in  the  way  we  know  so  well.  His  treasures,  his  art 
collections,  the  beauty  of  his  palace,  made  him  love  his 
life  and  dream  that  it  was  not  a  dream — when  suddenly 
he  was  brought  into  contact  with  the  actual  things 
which  lie  beneath  the  apparent.  God  appeared  to  him, 
not  as  to  Adam  in  the  cool  of  the  day,  but  as  He  camo 
to  Job,  in  the  whirlwind  and  the  eclipse,  and  Hezekiah 
knew  that  he  had  been  living  in  a  vain  show.  The 
answer  of  his  soul  was  quick  and  sad  :  '  By  these  things 
men  live,  O  Lord ; '  these  are  the  blows  which  teach 
men  what  life  really  is.     But  careless  prosperity  had 


382  The  After7ioo7i  of  L  ife, 

done  its  demoralising  work  on  him.  There  is  a  certain 
unmanly  softness  in  his  utterance  which  speaks  of  one 
whose  will  had  been  enervated  by  a  dilettante  life,  who 
nerer,  as  long  as  he  lived,  would  have  again  firmness 
in  thought,  or  decision  in  action.  * 

Many  of  you  are  prosperous,  happy,  and  at  ease  in  this 
great  city.  It  will  be  wise- for  you  to  remember  that 
thoughtless  prosperity  weakens  the  fibre  of  the  soul. 
When  one  is  accustomed  to  gi-atify  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment  every  wish,  to  buy  everything  that  strikes 
one's  fancy,  to  live  only  from  day  to  day,  and  not  from 
idea  to  idea,  then  the  directive  power  of  the  will  and 
the  restraining  power  of  the  conscience,  ^and  even  the 
distinguishing  power  of  the  intellect,  are  all  weakened, 
and  when  that  inevitable  shock  comes,  whatever  it  may 
be — ^for  you  cannot  escape  the  common  fate — you  meet 
it  as  an  untrained  man  meets  a  sudden  call  upon  his 
muscular  strength — in  a  soft,  exhausted  manner.  It  is 
true  you  are  redeemed  from  carelessness,  you  become  a 
servant  of  God,  a  believer  in  the  eternal,  but  you  never 
become  the  veteran  of  the  cross ;  there  is  always  a  tinge 
of  unmanliness  in  your  Christianity.  You  go  softly, 
there  is  in  your  soul  that  bitterness  which  marks  the 
weak  man. 

The  blow  which  sobered  Hezekiah  was  a  common 
one.  It  did  nothing  more  than  bring  him  face  to  face 
with  death.  The  process  whereby  his  dependence  on 
God  was  restored  was  uncomplicated.  But  there  are 
far  worse  shocks  than  this,  and  recovery  from  them 
into  a  godlike  life  is  long  and  dreadful.  There  are 
things  which  at  first   seem   to   annihilate  belief  and 


The  Restoration  of  Belief,  383 

cliiiiige  nil  indifferent  or  a  liappy  nature  into  earnest, 
even  savage,  bitterness. 

One  of  these  is  the  advent  of  irrecoverable  disease — 
protracted  weakness,  or  protracted  pain.  Suddenly 
the  victim  is  stayed  in  the  midst  of  life  and  isolated 
in  his  chamber ;  or  he  looks  forward  and  knows  that 
there  is  nothing  but  pain  between  him  and  death. 
God  forgives  our  human  anger  then,  but  we  speak 
roughly  to  Him  at  first.  We  challenge  Him  for  unfair 
treatment,  we  ask  what  we  have  done,  we  demand  if 
this  is  the  boasted  love  of  a  Father :  we  curse  our  day. 
It  is  a  dark  anger,  and  may  grow  in  intensity  till  faith 
and  love  are  lost  for  this  life — but  it  will  not  reach 
that  point  if  we  have  some  greatness  of  soul,  if  we  are 
open  to  the  touch  of  human  love.  For,  though  we  are 
angry  with  God,  we  are  not  angry  with  our  home  and 
with  our  friends.  Our  misfortune  brings  round  us  all 
the  ministering  of  common  human  tenderness ;  we  meet 
with  exquisite  sympathies,  with  love  which  renews  its 
flower  each  day,  with  infinite  delicacy  of  thought  from 
men.  Our  sympathy  is  kindled  in  return,  the  bitter 
fount  of  tears  grows  sweet,  we  can  only  repay  the  love 
we  receive  by  the  self-restraint  which  hinders  com- 
plaint and  keeps  us  from  giving  trouble.  And  then 
slowly  the  soul  becomes  alive  to  love ;  a  delicate  sen- 
sitiveness to  human  affection  takes  possession  of  the 
heart ;  unselfishness  is  the  element  it  breathes ;  a  noble 
patience  becomes  the  habit  of  the  spirit :  and  tlirough 
the  benign  influence  of  human  love  the  first  step 
towards  the  restoration  of  belief  has  been  made,  the 
soil  is  prepared  for  the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God 


384  Th£  Afternoon  of  Life. 

And  then,  one  day,  tlie  gospel  story  in  all  its  sweet 
simplicity  attracts  and  softens  the  sufferer's  heart.  He 
reads  of  Christ.  .He  also,  the  only  begotten  Son,  suf- 
fered, and  yet  the  heavenly  Father  loved  Him  well. 
'  Perhaps  I  too,'  he  says,  'may  be  God's  son,  my  suffer- 
icg  too  in  some  strange  manner  may  be  a  portion  of  His 
love  to  me  and  to  my  fellow-men.'  The  thought  trans- 
figures pain — an  ineffable,  inexplicable  rush  of  tender- 
ness takes  place.  We  know  not  why  we  should  love 
God.  We  only  know  we  do.  In  that  hour  a  bond  is 
made  which  eternity  cannot  dissolve  ;  the  child  finds  a 
Father,  and  the  soul  is  saved. 

And,  afterwards,  one  other  thought,  the  parent  of 
many  consolations,  adds  its  beauty  to  his  inner  life. 
He  reads  that  Christ's  suffering  in  self-sacrifice  brought 
redemption  unto  man.  Surely,  he  seems  to  dream, 
that  is  no  isolated  fact.  It  represents  what  all  self- 
sacrifice  is  doing.  'And  I,  if  I  bear  with  love  and 
patience,  may  also,  through  my  pain,  be  saving  men, 
may  fill  up  that  which  is  behindhand  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ,  may  carry  on  that  enduring  sacrifice  by 
which  the  race  is  saved.  On  the  wings  of  that  idea, 
my  solitary  life  is  raised  into  a  region  of  joy  and 
triumph.  I  too,  in  my  apparent  uselessness,  am  at  one 
with  the  Great  Labourer.  I  am  not  alone.  I  have 
ties  which  unite  me  to  my  brethren ;  my  suffering  links 
me  to  the  whole  race ;  I  bear  with  Christ  my  cross  for 
men.' 

This  is  not  only  the  restoration  of  belief — it  is  the 
victory  of  life. 

But  there  are  more  dreadful  shocks  than  that  of  long 


TJt^  Restoration  of  Belief.  385 

disease.  There  is  that  shipwreck  which  comes  of  dis- 
honoured lore.  Many  things  are  terrible,  but  none  is 
worse  thanthis.  To  have  had  the  whole  of  being  dis- 
solved in  one  cup,  filled,  it  once  seemed  to  ns,  with 
waters  pure  as  the  heaven,  whose  very  touch  made  life 
divine ;  and  then  to  find  that  they  were  poison,  which 
infected  and  then  consumed — this  is  the  bitterness  of 
death  held  in  the  intensity  of  life ;  and  this,  in  a.  world 
which  looks  so  fair,  is  the  fate  of  many  who  perish  of 
pain  and  make  no  sign. 

There  is  nothing  so  full  of  ghastly  irony  on  cai-th 
as  the  way  in  which  the  fate  of  a  man  or  woman's 
life  is  often  cast  on  a  single  die,  risked  in  a  single 
moment ;  and  when  the  root  of  love  from  whence  grows 
all  the  beauty  and  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life  is  bitten 
through  and  through,  what  remains  ? 

When  all  desire  at  last,  and  all  regret, 
Go  hand  in  hand  to  death,  and  all  is  vain  ; — 
What  shall  assuage  the  unforgotten  pain, 
And  teach  the  unforgetful  to  forget  ? 

For  some  there  is  no  remedy  but  death  and  far  be- 
yond, the  immanent  tenderness  of  God  ;  and  these  die 
in  the  burning  sand — poor  children,  cast  like  tender- 
coloured  shells,  too  fair  and  delicate  for  so  rough  a 
treatment,  high  up  upon  the  beach  by  the  rude  storm. 
For  others,  they  live  on  in  a  devouring  memory  ;  all  the 
perfumes  of  Arabia  will  not  sweeten  that  little  spot  of 
life  for  many  years.  And  the  memory  poisons  all  belief 
in  God.  It  is  the  wickedest  thing  in  the  world  to 
corrupt  and  dishonour  human  love,  for  those  who  do  it 
destroy  the  faith  of  those  they  injure  in  the  love  of  God 


386  The  Afternoon  of  Life, 

and  the  kindness  of  men.  In  this  world  the  restoration 
of  their  belief  seems  often  beyond  the  great  Healer's 
power.     The  wound  has  been  too  wide  and  deep. 

But  there  are  many  who  recover,  whom  God  leads 
out  of  the  desert  into  the  still  garden  of  an  evening  life 
of  peace  and  usefulness,  and  even  joy.  Can  we  at  all 
trace  how  this  may  be  ? 

Lapse  of  time  does  part  of  the  work.  If  they  are 
strong  of  nature — strong  to  endure  as  strong  to  suffer — 
if  they  have  enough  faith,  not  to  believe  in  love,  for  that 
may  be  too  much  to  ask  as  yet,  but  only  enough  not  to 
deny  love ;  if  they  can  wait,  even  with  their  faces  down 
in  the  sour  grass  of  life — the  soothing  hand  of  time 
touches  the  bitterness  and  it  slowly  dies  away.  But  it 
does  not  touch  the  memory  of  love.  In  the  quietude  of 
middle-life  we  look  back  upon  our  early  misery  and  only 
remember  the  love  we  felt.  The  cruelty,  the  pain,  the 
fear  have  become,  not  overmastering  presences,  but  phan- 
toms which  are  drifting  away.  Our  love  was  wasted, 
was  dishonoured  as  a  gift,  but  in  itself  it  was  beautiful, 
pure,  and  true,  and  it  remains  what  it  was.  '  It  was 
sweet  to  have  given  all  away,  it  was  passionate  pain  to 
have  the  gift  thrown  aside  and  trodden  down ;  but  that 
pain  has  passed,  and  now  only  the  sweetness  of  having 
given  remains  with  me.' 

That  exquisite  experience,  one  not  rarely  felt,  so 
divine  is  this  nature  of  ours,  is  the  point  on  which  the 
heavenly  Father  seizes — '  Yes  !  my  child,'  He  says,  '  it 
is  no  dishonour  to  have  given  and  not  to  have  received; 
it  IS  the  very  essence  of  my  honour,  the  long  experience 
of  my  life  with  men.     Your  bitter  trial  has  been  uncon- 


The  Rcsloralioji  of  Belief.  387 

Bciousl}'  the  imago  of  my  longsuffering/  It  touches  tlio 
soul  home,  to  feci  that  when  we  thought  ourselves 
furthest  from  God,  we  were  unconsciously  nearest  to 
Him ;  that  when  our  human  love  was  set  at  nought,  we 
were  closest  to  Him  who  loves  against  rejection  and 
neglect.  And  when  God  speaks  to  us  in  this  way,  He 
speaks  that  which  Christ  acted  among  men.  He,  too, 
gave  all  and  received  nothmg.  Pouring  infinite  love 
on  men,  they  despised  and  rejected  Him.  But  nothing 
could  change  his  tenderness  into  hardness,  nor  turn 
his  charity  into  gall.  When  all  his  sacrifice  had  been 
dishonoured,  He  bent  his  head  and  prayed,  '  Father, 
forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do.' 

And  you  are  saved,  faith  is  restored,  hope  is  re- 
newed, the  root  of  love  reknits  its  fibres,  the  tree  of  life 
puts  on  again  its  robe  of  foliage,  recovers  all  its  fruits, 
and  souls  are  redeemed  by  the  results  of  your  bitter 
experience,  when,  like  Christ,  you  can  turn  and  say, 
Father,  forgive  him.  Father,  forgive  her,  for  they  knew 
not  what  they  did. 

Once  more,  there  have  been  and  are  many  of  us,  who 
are  conscious  that  as  we  have  passed  into  the  later 
period  of  life  and  mingled  with  the  world,  our  early 
faith  has  also  passed  away.  To  all  thoughtful  men  this 
is  no  slight  shock. 

Our  young  religion  (and  I  speak  of  no  uncommon 
thing)  was  not  only  unquestioning  but  often  enthusiastic. 
It  depended  much  on  those  whom  we  loved.  For  the 
young  believe  through  their  affections,  and  their  faith  is 
coloured  by  their  heart.     Not  un frequently,  especially 


388  The  Afternoon  of  Life. 

witllin  the  last  five-and-twenty  years,  when  so  many 
religious  movements  had  leaders  born  to  attract  youth, 
the  religion  of  men  has  been  one  of  exalted  devotion 
or  of  poetic  sentiment.  But,  depending  much  on  the 
personal  influence  of  special  men,  and  not  on  personal 
union  with  God,  depending  more  on  human  direction 
than  on  individual  consciousness  of  a  Father  won 
through  unshared  and  original  effort,  it  became  sub- 
ject, when  inevitable  circumstance  did  away  with  the 
direct  influence  of  which  I  speak,  to  reaction.  The 
youth  left  the  university,  the  girl  left  her  home,  and 
met  with  a  multitude  of  varying  currents  of  opinion. 
New  views,  embodying  larger  aims,  bringing  their 
hearers  more  into  contact  with  the  race  but  bound  up 
with  antichristian  developments  of  thought,  loosened 
the  ties  of  old  religious  associations  and  led  us  un- 
consciously to  despise  the  piety  of  the  past  as  illiberal, 
sentimental,  or  ignorant.  Our  religious  feelings,  which 
had  been  without  us  and  not  within,  slowly  and  neces- 
sarily died  away.  The  war  of  criticism  and  of  science, 
the  endless  debates,  the  eagerness  of  intellectual  dis- 
cission which  rage  around  subjects  once  venerated  and 
dear,  insensibly  diminished  their  spiritual  power  on 
us,  for  feeling  grows  cold  in  an  atmosphere  of  dialec- 
tics. The  tone  of  our  society,  the  very  literary  or  pro- 
fessional work  in  which  we  were  involved,  the  friends 
whom  we  had  made,  the  drift  of  the  current  of  our 
life,  all  combined  to  overthrow  the  building  of  our  early 
faith.  We  became  more  and  more  liberal,  but  we  also 
became  more  and  more  imbelieving.  [Finally,  the  day 
arrived  when  the  last  tie  which  bound  us  to  the  religion 


TJte  Restoration  of  Belief.  389 

of  our  youth  was  severed  by  some  touch  of  the  knife  of 
circumstance,  and  we  realised  on  the  sudden,  with  a 
shock  which  startled  us,  that  our  soul  was  empty. 

It  is  deep  distress  at  first,  and  we  strive  to  recreate 
the  past,  to  clothe  our  life  again  with  the  worn-out 
garments.  But  that  must  fail — all  retrograde  move- 
ments do.  It  does  more  than  fail,  it  produces  an 
absolute  repulsion  from»the  old,  and  we  swing  back  into 
positive  unbelief.  We  have  been  touching  the  dead,  and 
its  touch  is  loathsome,  however  dear  it  was.  We  bury 
it  out  of  our  sight  now,  and  we  are  left  naked  of  our 
faith. 

Are  we  to  settle  down  into  that  ?  Is  that  the  groove 
in  which,  now  that  the  hair  is  growing  thin  upon  our 
temples  and  the  shadow  of  the  grave  draws  near,  we 
wish  to  run  down  to  the  end  ?  Are  we  truly,  entirely 
content  to  commit  our  whole  wondrous  life  to  the 
embrace  of  nothingness  ?  Is  that  the  lame  and  impo- 
tent conclusion  at  which,  after  years  of  interwoven 
feeling  and  exhaustive  thought,  and  of  efiPort  rising  day 
by  day  like  the  sun,  we  have  finally  arrived  ?  Is  that 
the  thing  we  persuade  ourselves  is  religious  in  its  indif- 
ference to  reward,  and  sublime  in  its  self-sacrifice  of 
blessedness  ?  I  call  it  ignoble  to  cease  to  work  for  life, 
to  give  up  the  hope  of  life,  when  life  means  the  vital 
consciousness  and  vital  action  of  continuous  love.  I 
call  it  suicide,  not  sacrifice,  which  abjures  immortality 
and  prefers  annihilation. 

In  the  name  of  Christ  I  ask  you  not  to  be  content 
with  this  chiU  phantom  of  religion,  with  this  miscalled 
virtue  of  sacrifice,  which  calls  upon  you  as  its  first  duty 


3  90  The  Afternoon  of  L  ife. 

to  sacrifice  your  personality  in  God.  That  is  to  turn  a 
virtue  into  a  vice. 

The  fact  is  you  have  lost  belief  because  your  past 
religion  was  borrowed  too  much  from  others,  too  much 
supported  by  the  influence  of  another,  too  little  the 
direct  communion  of  your  soul  with  its  Father  and  its 
Educator.  If  you  wish  for  perfection  and  are  not 
content  to  die  and  love  no  more,  the  restoration  of 
belief  may  be  attained  by  the  personal  labour  of  the 
soul.  Eesolve  to  rely  on  none,  to  accept  of  no  direction 
which  will  free  you  from  the  invigorating  pain  of  eff'ort. 
Meet  your  life  and  its  inner  questions  for  yourself  alone 
with  Him  whose  presence  you  dimly  feel ;  and  strive 
for  the  highest,  and  let  the  highest  be  this — to  live 
for  ever  in  God  that  you  may  live  for  ever  to  ex- 
pend yourself  for  man.  Free  yourself  from  the  cant 
of  infidelity.  It  boasts  of  love,  it  boasts  of  liberality. 
Has  it  no  sneer,  has  it  no  fanaticism?  Its  church 
is  narrower  than  our  strictest  sect,  its  persecution, 
had  it  power,  would  rival  that  of  the  most  virulent 
fanatic,  unless  the  use  it  makes  now  of  its  only  wea- 
pons, tongue  and  pen,  be  mere  playfulness.  Playfulness  ! 
Why,  the  foremost  characteristic  of  our  present  infidelity 
is  an  appalling  absence  of  humour.  No ;  I  do  not  find 
that  denial  of  the  faith  produces  the  growth  of  charity, 
but  the  contrary,  nor  yet  the  growth  of  that  delicate 
humour  which  goes  with  gentle  laughter  through  the 
tangled  difficulties  of  life,  and  conquers  them  by  half 
disbelieving  in  them. 

It  is  worth  trying  what  one  personal  efi^ort  to  bring 
ourselves  into  the  relation  of  a  child  to  a  father,  in  all 


The  Restoration  of  Belief,  391 

the  naturalness  and  simplicity  of  that  relation,  will  do 
towards  restoring  faith  and  renewing  life  with  tender- 
ness. For  this  has  been  the  fault  of  the  religion  we 
have  lost.  This  is  why  we  lost  it,  that  it  was  not  simple 
enough.  We  were  not  receiving  the  kingdom  of  God 
as  little  children.  We  had  encumbered  its  image  with 
opinions  of  men  which  we  had  to  defend,  and  in  defend- 
ing them  we  ceased  to  see  the  simple  kingdom  of  God. 
We  involved  it  with  the  rites  and  ordinances  and  tra- 
ditions of  a  sect  or  a  church,  and  when  partisanship  had 
chilled  charity,  we  ceased  to  see  its  universality.  We 
mixed  up  its  simple  elements  with  peculiar  feelings  of 
ecstasy  and  remorse,  and  of  spiritual  experiences  which 
separated  us  from  our  fellows,  and  when  these  transient 
things  died  away  we  thought  that  the  kingdom  had  also 
died.  We  placed  it  in  the  uncommon,  the  supernatural, 
the  wondrous ;  we  thought  it  was  a  blessing  given  to  few. 
We  forgot  that  all  great  and  living  things  are  common, 
natural,  and  only  not  wondrous  because  custom  has 
blinded  our  eyes.  The  air  we  breathe  is  every  where^- 
the  sun  pours  out  his  light  and  he»t  in  universal  pro- 
fusion. And  the  kingdom  of  God  is  as  universal  as  the 
air  and  sunlight,  is  bound  up  with  no  particular  church, 
and  demands  no  feelings  unnatural  to  man.  It  is  of 
God,  but  it  is  for  men.  It  rests  in  its  heavenly  place 
far  above  the  fret  and  fume  of  contending  opinions,  but 
in  the  midst  also  of  the  heart  of  mankind.  It  reposes 
on  a  few  simple  truths — the  Fatherhood  of  God ;  the 
Sonhood  of  Mankind ;  the  redemption  of  all  through 
educating  love  ;  the  communion  of  all  with  one  another 
in  the  work  of  charity — truths  so  simple  when  they  are 


392  The  Afternoon  of  L  tfe, 

grasped,  so  fitted  for  tlie  wisest  and  the  poorest,  so  enno- 
bling in  their  impulse  and  their  influence,  so  expansive 
to  enfold  and  enlighten  all  the  realms  of  human  action 
and  human  feeling,  that  we  are  astonished  that  we  have 
been  blind  so  long,  and  at  last  cry,  our  heart  broken  with 
a  great  joy,  '  Mj  Father,  make  me  a  little  child.' 

I  know  not  whether  we  are  yet  wearied  enough  in  the 
times  of  early  manhood  to  realise  our  childhood  and  His 
Fatherhood;  but  when  some  years  have  passed,  and 
brought  with  them  the  daily  burden  of  life,  it  is  a  simple 
yet  a  wonderful  comfort  to  have  a  second  self  which  is 
a  child ;  to  possess  a  childhood  of  feeling  in  the  midst  of 
manhood ;  and  when  the  work  of  .the  day  is  passed,  to 
lay  our  folded  hands  upon  the  knees  of  God  as  once  we 
did  upon  our  mother's  knee,  and  looking  up  to  say, 
'  Our  Father,  which  art  in  Heaven.' 


The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age.        393 


TRE  OLORY  AND  WORK  OF  OLD  AGE. 

*  Lord,  now  lettest  thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  according  to  thy 
word :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation.' — Luke  ii.  20,  iJO. 

The  greatness  of  man  is  cliiefly  in  this,  that  he  can 
say  to  pain,  I  will  endure ;  and  to  death,  I  will  conquer 
its  fear ;  and  to  old  age,  I  will  not  be  querulous — that 
he  can  say  and  do  these  things. 

The  glory  of  man  is  chiefly  in  this,  that  Christ 
enables  him  to  go  beyond  the  Stoic,  and  to  say  to  pain, 
I  will  not  only  endure  but  I  will  make  suffering  a  stej) 
towards  progress ;  and  to  death,  I  will  not  only  conquer 
its  fear  but  open  it  as  the  portal  of  ampler  life ;  and 
to  old  age,  I  will  not  only  not  be  querulous  but  will, 
therein  and  thereby,  finish  my  inner  development  before 
I  go — that  he  can  say  and  do  these  things. 

To  crystallise  into  finished  perfection  was  the  aim  and 
the  ideal  of  the  Stoic.  To  grow  for  ever  is  the  aim  and  the 
ideal  of  the  Christian.  Death  ended  the  effort  and  the 
pain  of  the  Stoic.  Death  continues  the  effort,  without 
the  pain,  of  the  Christian.  Perfection  is  then  our  object, 
and  life  our  delight.  We  know  that  both  are  inter- 
woven, that  as  the  power  of  living  increases,  the  ideal 
of  perfection  becomes  higher ;  that  as  we  become  more 
perfect,  we  become  more  enraptured  with  life  and  capable 
of  greater  pleasure  in  it. 


394        ^-^^  Glory  a7id  Work  of  Old  Age. 

But  before  we  enter  on  that  delightful  progress  where 
the  aspirations  and  the  powers  of  the  soul  are  equal, 
we  have  to  pass  through  the  parenthesis  of  life  on 
earth,  and  win  through  pain,  and  weakness,  and  decay, 
the  powers  which  will  break  into  easy  action  in  the  life 
to  come.  We  are  here  to  win,  not  perfection,  which 
we  cannot  reach,  but  as  much  maturity  as  is  possible 
for  us ;  and  on  our  ripening  stage  by  stage  in  a  pro- 
gressive and  natural  manner,  depends  our  power  of 
beginning  at  once  in  the  world  beyond,  our  race  for- 
ward to  perfect  and  more  perfect  things. 

Youth,  like  spring,  has  its  own  work,  a  work  chiefly 
of  faithful  and  pure  reception  of  beauty  and  joy  and 
goodness,  and  of  enthusiastic  delight  in  these.  Man- 
hood, like  summer,  has  its  own  work,  the  noble  expres- 
sion in  upright  labour  of  the  things  received  in  youth. 
The  later  manhood  passes,  like  autumn,  through  two 
phases — the  phase  of  harvest,  and  the  phase  of  entering 
decay.  Its  work  is  the  storing  up  of  the  results  of  life, 
and  afterwards  such  a  resistance  of  the  sadness  which 
comes  of  having  finished  all  external  toil,  that  the  soul 
may  enter  upon  the  winter  of  old  age  with  the  sense  of 
beauty  unimpaired,  though  changed ;  with  a  quiet  con- 
tentment in  which  the  heart  can  fold  its  wings  around 
itself  and  dwell  within  their  soft  and  silver  shadow ; 
when  life  drops  all  its  sails,  like  that  worn-out  ship, 
which,  after  jnuch  beating  on  the  seas,  lets  fall  its 
anchor  where  lofty  cliffs  enclose  a  quiet  haven. 

We  have  dwelt  before  on  the  Christian  work  of  youth 
and  manhood.  We  will  speak  to-day  of  the  blessings 
and  the  work  of  age.     There  is  no  need  to  praise  it 


The  Glo7y  and  IVor/c  of  Old  Age,        395 

overmucli,  to  represent  it,  as  some  do,  as  a  delightful 
time.  The  loss  it  brings  with  it  is  not  delightful ;  the 
wearing  out  of  energies  and  faculties  is  not,  and  cannot 
be,  a  source  of  pleasure ;  but  if  we  have  enjoyed  our 
spring,  and  toiled  through  our  summer,  and  half  reaped 
and  half  dreamed  through  our  autumn,  and  been  faithful 
through  all  to  manliness  and  to  God,  it  is  a  miserable 
thing  if  we  are  to  be  conquered  by  decay  at  last,  and 
when  winter  comes  sit  wailing  over  the  dying  embers  of 
the  fires  of  life. 

The  representation  which  our  latest  poet  has  given 
of  the  sorrowful  and  hopeless  sadness  of  old  age,  of  the 
pain  of  its  retrospect  because  the  joy  and  passion  of  life 
can  never  be  felt  again,  of  the  sad  desire  of  death  and 
rest,  without  any  security  of  life  to  be — but  even  so,  of 
the  desire  for  death  because  life  has  now  no  interest — is 
a  strange  contrast  to  this  noble  Jewish  hymn,  which, 
uttered  by  a  man  of  many  years,  has  thrilled  through- 
out the  ages  to  this  time,  and  stirred  by  its  sacred  and 
fine  humanity  in  old  men's  hearts  a  quiet  energy  and 
a  tranquillising  hope.  There  is  in  it  not  sorrow,  but  the 
conquest  of  sorrow ;  not  the  pain  of  retrospect,  but  the 
prophetic  joy;  not  the  bitterness,  but  the  peace  and 
hope  of  death ;  not  the  decay  of  interest  in  the  world, 
but  unabated  hope  for  his  country,  and  a  vision  of 
redemption  for  others  than  his  countrymen;  not  the 
seeing  of  sadness,  but  the  seeing  of  salvation.  If  the 
only  message  which  modern  poetry  has  to  bring  to  old 
age  be  the  same  effeminate  tone  which  characterised 
the  poems  of  one  only  among  the  Greek  lyrists,  we  had 
better,  when  the  hairs  grow  grey  upon  our  heads,  tuni 


396        The  Glory  and  IVork  of  Old  Age. 

from  tlie  message  of  this  melanclioly  pipe,  and  listen  to 
the  manly  notes  of  the  mellow  psaltery  of  Simeon, 
'  Lord,  now  lettest  Thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace, 
for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation.' 

What,  then,  were  the  gains  which  blessed  this  old 
man's  age?  The  first  was  prophetic  power;  not  so 
much  the  power  of  foretelling,  as  the  power  of  insight 
into  God's  doings.  He  saw  the  child  and  he  knew 
that  it  was  the  Saviour  of  the  world :  ^  mine  eyes  have 
seen  Thy  salvation.'  And  in  a  moment,  before  his  inward 
sight,  he  beheld  the  sun  of  redemption  rising  in  glory, 
not  ■  only  over  his  own  people,  but  in  a  light  which 
should  lighten  the  Gentiles  also. 

This  is  the  glory  of  a  Christian's  old  age — vividness 
of  spiritual  vision.  Memory  is  fading  away,  the  power 
of  reasoning  clearly  is  departing,  passion  is  chilled,  the 
hand  has  lost  its  cunning,  and  the  lips  their  eloquence, 
decay  has  touched  all  physical  and  intellectual  life,  but 
the  spirit  lives,  and  lives  more  vitally,  more  intensely 
than  ever.  It  does  its  own  peculiar  work  better  than 
in  youth  and  manhood.  It  sees  more  clearly  into  the 
life  and  realities  of  things.  It  has  gained  security  of 
faith  and  hope  for  itself,  and  in  aU  matters  pertain- 
ing to  the  spiritual  progress  of  mankind  it  sees  into 
God's  plans  and  rejoices  in  them. 

One  does  not  speak  vaguely  in  saying  this.  The 
biographies  which  record  this  strange  victory  over 
decay,  this  inner  life,  when  all  the  rest  of  the  man  is  at 
the  point  of  death,  are  many.  And  they  are  found 
written,  not  only  of  the  cultured  and  the  strong  in 
character,  but  of  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  and  the  feeble- 


The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age,        397 

minded.  We  do  not  find  this  in  any  philosophy  or 
religion  which  has  denied  God  and  denied  immortality, 
and  we  find  this  victoriousness  more  distinct  and 
developed  in  Christianity  than  in  Judaism.  And  more- 
over, this  spiritual  power  grows  stronger  in  propor- 
tion to  the  decay  of  the  other  powers,  for  earthly 
passion  and  aims  cloud  the  heavenly  horizon,  the 
tyranny  of  the  understanding  contends  against  the 
claims  of  faith,  and  the  perfect  health  of  the  body  makes 
this  life  too  precious  to  permit  much  contemplation  of 
the  other. 

I  do  not  speak  against  these  things;  for  youthful 
passion,  and  the  exercise  of  the  understanding,  and  ex- 
quisite health  are  natural,  and  we  ought  to  work  out 
their  good ;  but  if  they  are  all,  what  have  we  left  when 
they  decay  ?  Nothing  !  according  to  a  modem  theory — 
everything  !  according  to  the  Christian  thought.  Their 
l^assing  away  gives  room  for  the  expansion  of  the 
spirit.  This,  then,  is  the  primary  gain  of  old  age.  But 
it  does  not  come  mto  our  possession  unless  we  toil  for 
it.  K  life  and  its  work,  and  the  world  and  its  pursuits, 
lead  us  into  forgetfulness  of  God  and  neglect  of  our 
spirit,  then,  when  old  age  comes,  the  spirit  has  not 
got  beyond  the  stage  of  infancy.  It  tries  to  expand, 
but  it  has  never  been  fed,  never  educated,  and  it 
cannot  do  its  work.  But  Simeon's  intuitive  vision 
came  of  a  life  of  previous  holiness.  He  had  waited 
for  the  revelation  of  God's  salvation,  and  waiting 
meant  a  life  lived  with  that  expectation  at  its  root. 
In  the  midst  of  the  work  and  turmoil  of  life  he  had 
grown  more  and  more  like  to   God,  and  likeness*  of 


39^         The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age, 

character  to  God  gave  him  prophetic  insight  into  God's 
plans  for  the  race,  and  now,  when  the  hour  of  out- 
ward decay  had  come,  his  spirit,  which  had  put  forth 
stem,  and  branch,  and  leaves,  in  natural  progress,  sud- 
denly flowered. 

I  would  that  we  could  so  prepare  ourselves  for  age 
that  we  might  remember  in  the  inspiration  of  youth 
as  in  the  labour  of  manhood,  that  the  time  is  coming 
when  our  whole  life  will  be  dependent  on  the  power  of 
spiritual  being  in  us,  and  remembering  this,  labour  to 
train  the  spirit  into  the  likeness  of  Christ.  For, 
will  you  have  light  or  darkness  by  and  by ;  the  power 
of  vision  in  old  age,  or  the  impotency  of  regret ;  the 
hope  which  maketh  not  ashamed,  or  the  effeminate 
despair ;  the  sight  of  the  salvation  of  the  Lord  flowing 
in  freshening  tide  over  all  men,  or  the  sight  of  your 
own  miserable  decay  usurping  all  the  view?  These 
things  lie  in  your  own  hands. 

2.  Another  remarkable  gain  blessed  the  old  age  of 
Simeon,  the  possession  of  a  liberal  religious  view.  We 
find  the  old  man  set  free  from  the  exclusiveness  and 
bigotry  of  his  time  and  of  his  youth.  Those  were 
strange  words  upon  the  lips  of  a  Jew — ^  a  light  to 
lighten  the  Gentiles  ! '  They  had  been  said  before ; 
some,  in  the  esoteric  circle  of  the  higher  Judaism,  were 
probably  saying  them  now.  But  it  was  not  a  common 
thought,  nor  a  national  thought,  at  the  time  of  Christ's 
coming.  Those  who  heard  Simeon  would  be  likely  to 
call  him  a  dangerous  Liberal. 

Some  who  hold  the  view  that  old  age  is  bigoted  in 
opkiion,  will  be  still  more  surprised.   But  after  all,  youth 


The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age.        399 

is  more  narrow  and  intolerant  than  age.  We  call  young 
men  liberal  because  they  give  utterance  to  liberal 
opinions.  But  one  may  hold  the  truth  in  unrighteous- 
ness, and  one  may  profess  liberality  in  illiberality,  and 
tolerance  in  intolerance.  Those  religious  or  political 
liberals  who  are  always  thanking  God  that  they  are  not 
as  other  men  are,  who  consider  themselves  to  be 
emancipated,  and  despise  others,  are  not  free  from  the 
charge  of  Pharisaism.  Many  young  men  wear  their 
liberalism  as  they  wear  their  clothes,  and  it  no  more 
belongs  to  their  real  self  than  their  clothes  do.  Talk 
to  them,  and  you  will  find  that  their  abuse  and  con- 
tempt of  those  whom  they  call  unenlightened  and 
narrow  is  as  one-sided  and  intolerant  as  that  of  the 
hottest  of  their  opponents.  But  one  should  not  blame 
them  too  much,  for  intolerance  and  one-sidedness  are 
natural  to  youth.  It  has  not  enough  experience  to  be 
many-sided,  and  a  large  charity  is  the  growth  of  years, 
the  last  result  of  many  trials. 

For  this  reason,  tolerance  and  a  wide  religious  view 
are  natural  to  old  age,  and  it  is  very  pitiable  when 
we  find  it  without  them.  Experience  of  life  and 
knowledge  of  men  ought  to  soften  down  the  harsh- 
ness of  our  youthful  judgments.  It  is  astonishing  as 
we  grow  older,  if  we  have  grown  in  wisdom  of  love, 
how  much  good  we  discover  in  men  whom  we  thought  all 
wrong,  how  much  we  find  our  severity  mistaken.  W^ 
learn  that  there  is  a  root  of  good  at  the  centre  of  vn'ong 
opinions,  and  we  seek  to  draw  out  that  good.  We 
learn  not  to  judge  acts  till  we  are  acquainted  with 
th^  motives   which   prompted   them,    and    rather   to 


40O        The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age. 

believe  all  things  good  of  men  than  to  systematically 
distrust  them.  Nothing  can  be  worse  than  the  way  in 
which  persons  who  profess  themselves  to  be  liberal  con- 
demn public  men  for  turning  back  from  liberal  views, 
and  publish  their  condemnation  on  the  grounds  of  a 
single  mistake  or  of  a  single  speech,  on  which  at  least 
two  opinions  are  possible.  Common  sense  would  lead 
one  to  think  that  a  man  does  not  reverse  the  acts 
and  thoughts  of  a  long  life  in  a  day.  Charity  would 
wait  for  further  light  upon  the  matter,  but  neither 
common  sense  nor  charity  can  keep  the  eager  enthu- 
siast for  liberalism  from  proclaiming  his  liberality  by 
an  attack  upon  the  man  who  has  made  a  slip  for  the 
first  time.  He  pounces  at  once  upon  the  wound  and 
tears  it  open.     I  think  that  hateful. 

We  leave  this  sort  of  thing  behind  as  we  grow  older. 
Bat  even  then  we  do  not  lose  it  unless  there  has  been 
charity  at  the  root  of  our  early  harshness.  There  is  a 
severity  of  judgment  which  comes  of  eager  love  that 
men  should  be  right,  there  is  a  severity  which  comes 
of  eager  desire  that  we  should  be  proved  right.  It  is 
the  former  only  which  ripens  into  the  wise  tenderness 
of  age. 

Again,  there  is  an  indifference  as  to  what  men  believe 
and  do,  which  is  often  mistaken  for  breadth  of  view. 
It  does  not  ripen  into  true  tolerance  in  age,  but  into 
•ontempt  of  men.  For  its  root  is  not  charity,  but  the 
idleness  which  is  too  slothful  to  form  opinions,  idleness 
whose  root  is  selfishness. 

The  true  liberality  of  old  age  is  not  this  indifference. 

It  is  gained  by  the  entrance  of  the  soul  into  the  large 

9- 


The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age,        401 

region  of  the  love  of  God,  by  deeper  communion 
Avith  the  infinite  variety  of  the  character  of  Christ. 
Hence  the  old  man,  at  one  with  simple  and  majestic 
principles,  passes  by  the  transient  forms  into  which 
iileas  are  thrown  by  religious  men,  and  looks  for  the 
spirit  in  which  men  work,  and  judges  them  by  that ; 
hence  he  lays  aside  the  outside  peculiarities  of  men'a 
characters  which  would  have  jarred  him  in  youth,  and 
searches  directly  for  the  motives  and  ideas  of  the 
character ;  hence  the  temporary  currents  on  the  sur- 
face of  public  afifairs,  and  the  local  outbursts  of  evil,  do 
not  much  cloud  his  view  of  the  fortunes  of  Man ;  he 
looks  deeper,  and  sees  the  vast  main  current  sweeping 
towards  God,  he  finds  beneath  the  evil  the  infinite  foun- 
tain of  good.  The  evils  and  sufferings  of  the  world  lose 
their  hai-sh  outlines,  and  their  dread,  and  pain,  and  are 
placed  in  the  inner  light  of  thought.  They  are  there 
seen  along  with  the  good  and  joy  of  the  world,  till  at 
last  the  vision  of  the  great  whole  dawns  upon  the  soul, 
and  the  man  learns  to  see  God  moving  as  a  spirit 
in  all  history,  and  Christ  endeavouring  in  all  men's 
hearts. 

Then  he  can  bend  his  head  to  the  blow  of  death,  not 
in  bitterness  of  anger  that  humanity  has  failed,  not  in 
selfish  indifference  to  the  welfare  of  mankind,  but  in  a 
sweet  contentment  that  all  things  are  working  together 
for  good,  that  the  Mankind  for  which  and  with  which 
he  has  worked  and  suffei;Gd  like  a  brother,  may  be  left 
with  perfect  confidence  in  the  hands  of  perfect  love, 
that  salvation  has  come  and  is  coming  unto  all,  not  only 
io  favoured,  but  to  neglected  races ;  for  to  him  the  spirit 


402         The  Glory  aitd  Work  of  Old  Age, 

of  Simeon's  phrase  is  ever  true,  that  Christ  is  a  light  to 
lighten  the  Gentiles,  as  well  as  the  glorj  of  his  people 
Israel. 

So  he  wins  the  crowning  blessing  of  old  age — deep 
peace.  '  Lord,  now  lettest  Thou  thy  servant  depart  in 
peace,  according  to  thy  word.' 

We  cannot  win  that  till  just  before  the  close.  We 
long  for  rest  to  our  unquiet  heart  and  brain,  all  through 
the  later  days  of  youth.  We  must  not  have  it  then  ; 
for  had  we  not  our  restlessness,  how  should  we  overcome 
the  natural  slothfulness  of  youth?  We  desire  in  a 
more  passionate  way,  in  our  manhood,  for  rest  from 
the  burden  of  this  world;  for  some  relief  from  the 
torrent  of  anger,  and  doubt,  and  passion,  and  thought, 
which,  far  deeper  and  more  impetuous  than  ever  in 
youth,  sweeps  over  the  fields  of  the  heart — whenever 
toil,  relaxed  for  a  moment,  gives  us  leave,  in  the  slumber 
of  the  will,  to  feel  our  wants  and  to  question  our  destiny. 
But  there  is  no  peace  for  us  then.  We  must  work 
out  our  own  thought,  and  that  in  solitude,  for  we 
have  passed  by  the  time  when,  as  in  youth,  we  could 
seek  for  sympathy  in  these  things,  and  entrust  our 
secrets  to  another.  And  the  pain  and  the  battle  grow 
heavier  and  heavier  as  life  gets  nearer  to  old  age, 
for  day  by  day  we  lose  the  force  which  enabled  us  to 
distract  ourselves  in  toil.  Day  by  day  the  inward  pain 
is  increased  by  the  outward  effort  to  recall  decaying 
energy.  It  is  our  duty  to  w&ge  the  ^battle  to  the  end, 
and  our  best  comfort,  apart  from  Christ,  is  that  not  to 
wage  it,  and  to  give  in,  is  worse  than  to  go  on.  But, 
if  God  be  true,  and  Christianity  be  not  a  dream,  every 


TJie  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age.        403 

hour  of  the  fight  is  storing  up  in  us  the  capabilities 
of  active  peace  when  the  warfare  is  accomplished. 
It  is  these  capabilities  which  begin  to  rise  within  us 
into  victory  over  restlessness  when  old  age  has  come. 
We  can  contend  no  more — we  have  scarcely  anything  left 
to  contend  against ;  we  have  slain  all  our  foes  in  the 
power  of  Christ ;  we  have  exhausted  all  our  doubts ;  and 
as  the  clouds  disperse,  the  star  of  hope  rises  soft  and 
cle.ar  in  the  pale  pure  light  of  the  heavenly  dawn.  We 
look  on  it,  and  are  at  rest ;  we  lay  down  our  armour ; 
we  lie  back  contented  iathe  arms  of  God.  We  whisper, 
humbl}',  with  S.  Paul,  '  I  have  fought  the  good  fight.' 
We  know  that  the  dawn-star  of  hope  will  melt  away 
when  the  sun  rises  on  our  new  life,  but  it  will  melt  in 
the  light  of  absolute  realisation.  We  have  seen,  at 
last,  God's  salvation,  and  we  cry  with  Simeon,  *  Lord, 
now  lettest  Thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace.' 

This,  then,  is  what  we  are  and  what  we  receive  from 
God,  as  age  draws  on.  This  is  the  result  of  the  work 
of  God  upon  us. 

But  is  there  no  personal  business  which  we  ourselves 
are  bound  to  do  in  age  ?  This  is  our  last  subject,  the 
special  work  of  age.  It  is  partly  outward,  partly  in- 
ward. 

Its  outward  work  is  the  spreading  of  charity.  Old 
age  should  radiate  charity  from  it,  till  the  atmosphere 
of  the  whole  household  and  the  society  in  which  it  lives 
be  warm  with  its  gracious  influence.  Men,  women,  and 
children  should  feel  softened,  and  be  bettered,  by  the 
presence  of  its  kindliness. 

Again,  it  is  the  usage  of  experience  for  the  help  of 


404         The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age. 

others.  Age  should  not  surrender  from  weariness  of 
life  its  right  of  giving  sympathy,  its  power  of  forming 
in  its  calm,  and  from  its  long  experience,  wise  judgments 
for  the  troubled  lives  of  others.  It  ought  not  to  claim 
its  infirmity  as  a  reason  for  harshness,  or  for  want  of 
tender  interest.  And  that  it  may  be  able  to  do  the 
good  I  mention,  and  to  avoid  the  evil,  it  ought  as  much 
as  possible  to  live  with  the  young.  Else  its  tendency  is 
to  be  absorbed  in  its  own  weaknesses  and  wants ;  to 
lose  interest  in  the  actual  movements  of  the  world,  and 
especially  in  those  movements  which  are  initiated  by 
the  young,  which,  though  sometimes  ill-considered 
and  foolish,  are  yet  the  germs  of  that  which  will  be, 
and  have  at  least  the  one  important  quality  of  life. 
Next  to  the  sad  spectacle  of  seeing  a  young  man  mock 
the  wisdom  and  despise  the  warnings  of  old  age,  is  the 
spectacle  of  an  old  man  who  has  only  indifference  for 
the  enthusiasm  and  contempt  for  the  ideas  of  the 
young. 

The  inward  work  of  age  is,  however,  the  most  impor- 
tant. After  a  time,  the  outward  influence  of  which  I 
have  spoken  becomes  less  and  less ;  less  direct  at  least, 
more  indirect.  The  old  man,  the  old  woman,  becoming 
weaker,  and  unable  to  share  in  earthly  things,  retire  into 
their  inner  being,  and  live  there  a  wonderful  and  vivid 
life.  It  is  often  said  that  we  know  not  all  the  strange 
solitary  life  of  children.  I  do  not  know  if  we  think 
enough  of  the  stranger  and  more  solitary  life  which  fills 
the  heart  of  age.  More  solitary  in  the  present,  but  oh, 
how  peopled  with  the  past !  What  vivid  dreams,  what 
memories  of  enthusiasm,  of  scenes  where  young  love 


The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age.        405 

moved  in  luminous  air,  of  early  sorrows,  of  dramas  in 
whicli  life  concentrated  itself  for  a  few  months  into 
tragedy  or  comedy;  what  recollections  of  friendsliii)s 
which  sailed  with  us  over  the  ocean  of  life,  and  there 
sank  or  parted,  but  left  with  us  new  feelings,  new 
thoughts,  sweet  tendernesses,  dearer  now  than  ever  to 
the  silent  heart.  What  holier  memories  too  are  ours, 
when,  in  the  calm  of  age,  we  look  back  to  the  place 
where  God  first  touched  our  heart,  and  we  set  up  our 
Bethel  in  its  plain ;  where  the  blessedness  of  forgive- 
ness in  Christ,  and  the  love  of  Christ,  first  made  us 
new ;  when,  as  we  went  on,  temptation  met  us  and  He 
enabled  us  to  conquer,  or,  if  we  failed,  to  begin  again  ; 
when  we  grew  divinely  conscious  of  an  inner  Spirit 
with  us,  and  that  assurance  of  eternal  life  began  which 
years  have  only  deepened.  Oh  !  none  are  less  alone, 
none  have  a  more  sweet  and  vivid  life,  than  many  a 
.silent  man  and  woman  in  the  years  of  age. 

And  here  we  touch  on  one  portion  of  the  inner  work 
which  old  age  has  to  do — the  edifying  of  the  heart  in 
noble  religion  by  consideration  of  the  past.  Fate  cannot 
rob  the  old  of  remembrance :  the  memory  of  love  and 
joy,  of  friendship  and  companionship,  is  always  sweet ; 
and  if  the  memory  be  one  of  sorrow,  one  may  still  not  be 
unhappy  if  the  sorrow  has  become  an  intimate  part  of 
life,  cherished  for  its  results  and  for  the  tenderness  with 
Nvhich  it  was  linked — since  now  the  pain  of  it  has  gone 
with  the  decay  of  passion.  One  by  one  the  events  of 
life  are  traced  in  quiet  retrospection,  one  by  one  they 
fall  into  a  kind  of  religious  order;  their  causes  are 
seen,  their  meaning,  and  their  relation  to  one  another 


4o6        The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age. 

and  to  the  wliole  of  life ;  till  at  last  the  conviction  that 
a  Father  has  been  leading  him  all  his  life  long  is  fixed 
in  the  old  man's  mind.  He  sees  that  everything  in  the 
past  has  been  ripening  him,  that  he  has  been  made 
slowly  more  complete.  Then  breaks  npon  him  as  never 
before  the  assurance  of  immortality,  '  Can  this  long 
work  of  God's  be  for  nought  ?  can  this  education,  every 
hour  of  which  was  weighty  with  meaning,  end  in  the 
grave  ?  Is  my  spirit,  at  the  very  moment  when  it  is 
most  conscious  of  completion,  nearest  to  extinction  ?  It 
is  impossible.' 

Thus  does  life  in  the  past  confirm  faith  in  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  and  make  an  immortal  future  real. 
Thus,  in  spiritual  brooding  over  past  and  future,  the 
experience  of  the  one  and  the  faith  in  the  other  unite 
in  one  divine  and  glorious  hope. 

Once  more.  The  inward  work  of  old  age  consists  in 
rounding  the  soul  into  as  great  perfection  as  possible, 
in  filling  up  the  broken  edges  of  the  sphere  of  life,  in 
consolidating  the  world  of  our  ideas.  When  we  reach 
old  age,  we  are  conscious,  if  we  are  desirous  of  per- 
fection, of  a  certain  absence  of  finish  in  our  qualities 
and  in  our  Christian  graces.  It  is  vain  to  say  that 
this  consciousness  implies  a  diseased  self-introspec- 
tion. For  introspection  which  would  be  morbid  in 
youth  and  manhood  is  natural  to  old  age.  Unless 
inordinately  indulged  in,  no  evils  follow  from  it  then. 
The  old  man  must  live  much  alone.  He  cannot 
do  better  than  prayerfully  seek  to  fulfil  what  is  yet 
wanting  in  his  faith,  in  his  charity,  in  his  holiness — 
drawing  nearer    and  nearer  to   conformity  with   his 


Tlie  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age,        407 

Saviour  and  his  friend ;  making  himself,  through  his 
daily  companionship  with  the  Spirit  of  God,  more  ready 
for  the  everlasting  life  with  God. 

Nor  can  he  do  better  than  consolidate  and  harmonise 
into  a  whole  the  ideas  he  has  gained  in  life.  Many  are 
useless— these  he  will  reject ;  many  are  noble,  and  have 
on  them  the  impress  of  eternity — these  he  will  return  to 
and  dwell  on  till  they  become  interwoven  with  his 
being,  possessions  for  ever.  For  ideas  belong  to  the 
spiritual  nature.  All  else  will  be  left  behind  us  when 
we  die ;  but  these  endure,  these  we  shall  take  with  us. 
Let  us  watch  and  work,  that  our  eternal  companions 
be  worthy  of  us  and  of  the  life  to  come.  No  aim  in 
old  age  can  be  nobler  than  to  arrive  at  death  with  a 
spirit  enriched  and  matured  by  the  possession  of  puri- 
fied ideas.  No  aim  in  youth  and  manhood  can  be 
better  than  the  winning  of  them. 

*From  this  sort  of  work  arises  a  clear  spiritual  activity 
entirely  independent  of  outward  decay.  It  belongs  to  the 
inner  life ;  it  does  not  weary  like  intellectual  activity ; 
it  is  more  like  the  easy  breathing  of  a  clear  atmosphere 
than  any  strenuous  labour.  In  it  the  mind  is  cheerful 
and  hopeful.  It  blends  easily  with  every  emotion,  and 
heightens  emotion  without  the  pain  of  excitement.  In 
itself  it  has  an  arranging  power,  so  that  life  harmonised 
under  its  influence  is  seen  as  a  well-ordered  landscape 
on  which  the  sun  of  God's  love  is  shining.  In  wonder, 
and  in  joy  that  he  has  been  so  cared  for,  and  so  led 
into  maturity,  aU  thought  of  self  passes  from  the*  old 
man's  life,  and  he  throws  his  whole  being  in  gratitude  at 
the  feet  of  his  Saviour  and  his  God.     It  is,  in  fact,  the 


4o8         The  Glory  and  Work  of  Old  Age, 

first  touclij  even  before  death,  of  the  pure  and  perfect 
life,  the  first  faint  throb  of  the  exquisite  existence  into 
■which  he  is  going  to  enter,  the  half-realisation  on  the 
borders  of  the  world  of  light,  while  yet  within  the 
glimmering  shadow,  of  what  communion  with  God  may 
mean.  Then  indeed  he  feels  what  Simeon  felt  when 
the  long-repressed  cry  rose  to  his  lips,  for  he  sees  the 
very  Christ :  '  Lord,  now  lettest  Thou  thy  servant 
depart  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salva- 
tion.' 


PRIMARY  TRUTHS  OF  RELIGION. 

Bt  Right  Rbv.  THOMAS  M.  CLARK,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Dtsiiop  or  inoDi  island. 

1  vol,,  121X10.    Price,  $1.00. 

From  the  AUigtmelM  UUrartohs  ZtUung,  Berlin : 

»*  We  find  In  this  Ih>o1c  of  tho  Rlshon  of  Bhode  iBland  a  contribution  to  rhrlsllnn 
•poloxetioe  of  pv,it  intvn>st  and  valiio.  The  book  dtacumu^H,  in  flvu  partA,  the  prolik-tnn 
of  ThcUun.  tho  fundanu-nul  prlncijilos  of  nionUs,  revelntion.  Innpinition,  and  ("hrl8- 
tlanltv.  Tho  preat  qnostions  |HTtain!n>r  to  tl:e»e  sovcral  hcndH  lUhlion  Clnrk  lia*i  unmt 
satisllictornv  solved  with  ft  pennine  philosophical  uplrlt,  ond  on  the  ImnlH  of  eoinprt'- 
bonsiro  studies.  Tho  work  pives  evideneo  tliroiiphout  of  tho  author's  familiarity  with 
tho  fUndAUientAl  prohloins  of  tho  philosophy  of  reliplon.  The  Hlshop  Is,  without 
doubt,  an  eloquent  and  original  thinker;  and  his  work,  which,  in  Its  lojrlcal  develop- 
ment. Is  acute,  and  clear,  and  precise,  will  enchain  the  Interest  of  the  readers  lor  whom 
It  has  been  written.  As  a  short  but  exhaustive  book  for  doubters,  we  preet  this  pro- 
duction of  one  of  tho  most  distinjfulahed  members  of  the  American  Episcopate,  and 
wish  for  it  an  abiding;  success." 

From  the  Etigluih  CfntrcJiman  and  Clerical  Journal,  London: 
"Bishop  Clark  h.as  pjxblished  this  pithy  treatise  to  meet  the  unsettled  state  of  mind 
of  his  own  couiitryinen  in  relation  to  tho  'fundamental  principles  of  faith  and  morals.* 
The  l:uipu:is-e  is  "n<linirablv  lucid  and  cle^r,  and  the  nieaninp  of  the  writer  is  never 
buried  under  profound  anl  technical  idiraseolopy,  too  often  used  In  such  works.  Cler- 
pymen  will  llnd  it  excellently  fitted  for  teaching  to  thoughtful  working-men  in  their 
parishes." 

From  the  Church  Opinion,  London : 

**  Bishop  Clark's  work  is  invaluable,  as  it  is  not  written  in  a  stylo  above  the  capablU- 
tles  of  tho  peneral  public,  but,  In  words  easy  to  be  understood,"  refutes  the  doctrines 
of  Positivism." 

Frpm  a  review  in  tho  Litfrary  World,  London: 

**  Wo  welcome  this  book  from  the  pen  of  an  American  Bishop.  Dr.  Clark  baa  donQ 
well  in  this  volume  on  'The  Primary  Truths  of  Kellplon.'  "With  clearness,  concise- 
ness, lopical  force,  breadth  of  tone,  wise  discrimination,  convlnclnp  ptatenient,  he  deals 
with  fundamental  facts.  Indeed,  the  whole  work  is  one  which  may  be  nut  Into  the 
hand  of  any  thouphtful,  sincere  unbeliever  in  the  preat  truths  with-  which  it  deals. 
Its  candor  will  awaken  admiration,  and  its  reasoning  lead  to  faith." 

From  the  New  York  Express : 

"The  author  of  this  valu.ihle  littlo  work  is  a  distinpulshed  Bishop  of  tho  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  Churcli,  and  has  conferred  a  benefit  on  his  eo-relipionists  and  on  earnest 
Christiana  penerally,  by  the  production  of  this  estimable  hsnd-book  of  Orthodoxy. 
Avoiding  dogmatic  theology,  ho  clearly  and  with  preat  eloquence  presents  the  serii)- 
tural  and  historical  evidences  in  favor  of  revealed  relipion.  meeting  the  cavils  of  ob- 
jectors with  calm  and  well-digested  arguments  that  will  claim  attention  from  even 
the  most  confirmed  skeptics.  Tho  chapters  on  the  evidences  of  the  great  truths  of 
Christianity  are  especially  worthy  of  commendation.  Indeed,  the  whole  work  will 
prove  an  acceptable  addition  to  the  controversial  religious  Uterature  of  the  day." 

From  the  Boston  TYnrmcript: 

"This  clear  and  candid  treatise  is  not  docrmatie,  but  entirely  tme  to  its  title.  The 
writer,  in  a  plain  and  lucid  stylo,  addresses  himself  to  the  unsetth-d  condition  of  ndnd 
which  prevails  so  extensively' In  repanl  to  the  doctrines  that  imderlie  nil  our  'Pysteins 
of  Divinity.'  Ills  answers  to  fundamental  questions  are  piven  In  a  catholic  spirit  that 
recognizes  the  fact  that  doubt  is  not  sinful  in  Itself^  and  there  is  no  little  skepticism 
which  is  to  be  treated  with  sympathetic  and  rational  consideration." 

From  The  Living  Church  : 

"The  book  of  tho  Bishop  of  Khode  Island  is  timely.  It  is  of  a  kind  which  the 
rhnrcb  needs.  It  is  fair,  honest  and  open.  It  does  not  sneer  at  what  It  does  not  un- 
derstand. It  addres.scs  itself  in  simple  and  honest  terms  to  honest  and  thoughtftjl 
men.  It  is  calm  and  judicial.  It  states  ojiposlng  views  with  great  fairness;  it  takes 
up  a  position  which  must  command  respect  and  it  states  it  in  terms  which  are  moder- 
ate, and  show  appreciation  of  the  force  of  opposing  views.'* 


New  Yobk  :  D.  APPLBTON  Jt  CO,  Pitbushebs,  M9  dc  501  Bboadwat. 


2).  APPhETOS  &  CO:S  PUBLIOATIONK 

RELIGIOUS  WORKS 

rUBLISHED    BY 

D.   APPLETON   &   COMPANY, 

549  &  551  Broadway,  New  York. 


Tlie  Good  Report ;  Morning  and  JEveninff  Lessonn 
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Thoughts  on  Personal  Heligion:  Being  a  Treatise  on 
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Edward  Meyrick  Goulburn,  D.  D.  Fourth  American  Edition, 
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burn, D.  D.     1  vol.,  12mo.     Cloth,  $1.00. 

The  Idle  Word  :  Short,  Religious  Essays  on  the  Gift  of  Speech 
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GoPLBURN,  D.  D.     1  vol.,  12mo.     Cloth,  75  cents. 

A  n  JnProduction  to  the  Devotional  Study  of  the 
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RITTER'S    PALESTINE. 


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549  A  551  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK. 

HAVE  JD8T  PUBLISHED, 

TIIE  COMPARATIVE 

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AKD  THB 

SINAITIC  PENINSULA. 

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TRANSLATED     AMI     ADAPTED     TO     BIBLICAL     STUDENTS 

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Four  Volumes  8vo.    Price  1 14.00. 


Notices  of  tlie  Enfi;UMli  Preioi. 

From  Keith  Johnston^  Geographer  to  Ote  Queen. 

"1  have  always  looked  upon  *  Rittor's  Comparative  Goograph) 
of  Palestine,'  comprised  in  bis  famous  Erdkunde,  as  the  great  clas- 
eical  work  on  the  subject ;  a  clear  and  full  resumi  of  all  that  wais 
known  of  Bible  lands  up  to  the  time  he  wrote  ;  and  as  such,  india- 
pensable  to  the  student  of  Biblical  geography  and  history.  The 
translation  will  open  up  a  flood  of  kno'^vledge  to  the  English  reader, 
especially  as  the  editor  is  a  man  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  tbis  noble-minded  and  truly  Christian  author." 

From  n.  B.  Tristam,  author  of  "  TTie  Land  of  Inrael,''  tJie  mod 
thorough  record  of  recent  travel  in  iJie  Holy  Land. 

**  One  of  tbe  mo6t  valuable  works  on  Palestine  ever  published." 
From  the  Spectator. 

"  It  would  be  impossible  to  mention  all  the  good  things  in  thes* 
volumes.  Kittor  allows  no  hint  in  any  known  writer  to  escape  him. 
Classical  or  Oriental,  ancient  or  modem,  there  is  no  language  from 
fcanscrit  to  Spanish  but  if  necessary  he  calls  it  into  reqtiisition.  No 
writer  of  weight  who  has  started  a  new  theory,  or  with  new  argu- 
ments supported  an  old  one,  but  finds  all  his  arguments  carefuUf 
weighed,  and  justly  dealt  with  at  Ritter's  hands." 


CowLEs's  Notes  on  the  Old  Testament 


I,     THE  3IINOU   JPROTHETS. 

1  vol.,  12mo.     $2.00. 


II.    EZEKIEZ,   ANn   DANIEL, 

1  vol.,  12mo.     $2.25. 


Ill,    ISAIAH, 

1  vol.,  12mo.     $2.25. 


ir.    rBOVEBBS,   ECCLESIASTES,    AND 
THE  SONG    OF  SOL03ION, 

1  vol.,  12mo.     $2.00. 


F.    NOTES    ON  JEREMIAH. 

1  vol.,  12mo.     $2.25. 


By  Rev.    HENRY  COWLES,   D.    D. 


From  TJie  Christian  Intelligencer^  IT".  Y. 
"  These  works  are  designed  for  both  pastor  and  people.  They  embody  the  re- 
Bnlts  of  much  research,  and  elucidate  the  text  of  sacred  Scripture  with  adfbirable 
force  and  simplicity.  The  learned  professor,  havinj?  devoted  many  years  to  the 
close  and  devout  study  of  the  Bible,  seems  to  have  become  thoroughly  furnished 
with  all  needful  materials  to  produce  a  useful  and  trustworthy  commentary." 

From  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon,  of  Yale  College. 
"There  is,  within  my  knowledge,  no  other  work  on  the  same  portions  of  the 
Bible,  combining  so  much  of  the  results  of  accurate  scholarship  with  so  much  com- 
mon-sense and  so  much  of  a  practical  and  devotional  spu^t." 

From  Eev.  Dr.  S.  Wolcott,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio. 
"  The  author,  who  ranks  as  a  scholar  with  the  most  eminent  graduates  of  Yale 
College,  has  devoted  years  to  the  study  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  in  the  original 
tongues,  and  the  fruits  of  careful  and  independent  research  appear  in  this  work. 
With  sound  scholarship  the  writer  combines  the  unction  of  deep  rehgious  expe- 
rience, an  earnest  love  of  the  truth,  with  a  remarkable  freedom  from  all  fimciful 
speculation,  a  candid  judgment,  and  the  feculty  of  expressing  his  thoughts  clearly 
and  forcibly." 

From  President  E.  B.  Fairfield,  of  JlilUdale  College. 
"I  am  very  much  pleased  with  your  Commentary.    It  meets  a  want  which 
has  long  been  felt.    For  various  reasons,  the  writings  of  the  prophets  have  consti- 
tuted a  sealed  book  to  a  large  part  of  the  ministry  as  well  as  most  of  the  comtnon 
Eeople.    They  are  not  sufficiently  understood  to  make  them  appreciated.    Your 
rief  notes  relieve  them  of  all  their  want  of  interest  to  common  readers.    I  think 
you  have  said  just  enough." 


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